Sanctuary
by YouSentMeFlying
Summary: Be careful who you bully.
1. what comes around, goes around

**Yes, I'm back with a new and very different fanfiction that I'd promised. I hadn't written out an actual story in a while (without stopping in the middle of writing…sorry about that) so I figured it was time for a new one. :)**

**I feel like I should add a warning in here just in case, because I know how some readers of fanfiction like to overreact of some of the content in the stories. **

**This fic is rated M for a reason; involving strong violence, language, some sexuality, self-harm, and abuse. **

**I own nothing of Degrassi or the characters; the only thing I own is this particular storyline.**

"_Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance solidity to pure wind." –George Orwell._

The bright coruscate from the afternoon sunlight shone down on Eli Goldsworthy's extremely pale face. He had been out all night taking care of some "things" and didn't get back home until after four in the morning. In fact, he was so tired from his activities when he finally got back home that he didn't get the chance to wash up before he lied down and crashed. And as he lay there in the small, familiar bedroom, he couldn't stop thinking about what an amazing job he did the previous night.

The scent of diluted rusted copper, and sea sault burned his nostrils as he smirked to himself; satisfied, his jade eyes glimmering under the light.

Eli Goldsworthy was a junior at Degrassi Community School; he was the victim of bullying for many years, and had worked at a crematory over the summer for extra cash. Eli's parents were both alcoholics and drug addicts so it wasn't like they were able to support him in any way. All of the money that they made was used on prescription medication and vodka. Because of their mistakes, Eli learned to take care of himself his entire life.

Eli forced himself out of his bed energetically, heading straight to his vintage record player that sat on the mahogany dresser that had begun to fall apart. He had such a strong love for music that it was insane. His floors have been covered in old records since he could ever remember. Not to mention the hundreds of band posters showering his corbeau bedroom walls.

The boy wearing all black twirled the vinyl record between his fingers before locking it into the player and dragging the needle into the middle of the large black disk. The loud, heavy metal music surrounded the room as he began banging his head to the beat, slowly making his way over to the washroom which was connected to his bedroom.

The rhythm of the song echoed; note after note was being thrown out as a man with a rough voice began screaming out lyrics.

Eli stripped down from his stained clothing, the shower already turned on while he ran a comb through his black matted hair, still dancing to the beat of the heavy song.

Work was starting in a little over a half hour and he was already way behind on his schedule. If he hadn't been out all night…_attending _to Johnny DiMarco so late last night, he would have been on his drive over there already. But it was worth it. _So damn worth it._

He stepped into the shower, letting the hot water wash over him as he stared blankly at the wall in front of him. The thick red liquid poured off his body, stirring around the drain before it escaped down the small holes of it.

xxx

_Johnny struggled. His hands and feet were chained up so he couldn't escape from the abandoned warehouse that was out of the way. Johnny had been bullying Eli ever since he started at Degrassi for his freshman year. He would call him rude names such as "Devil Worshiper", "Suicidal Freak", "Emo Cutter". He would also push him around constantly and shove him into lockers when he "got in the way." But that was when Eli was weak, before he realized how strong he really was when he needed to be._

_Now, as Eli paced in front of him, a devious smirk plastered on his face, he laughed at how stupid Johnny had been all those years. _

"_What the hell are you doing, freak?" Johnny finally asked him, his voice raw and tired. Eli had managed to meet him in an alleyway, posing as a drug dealer when he beat Johnny in the side of the head with a baseball bat. There was no way he would have been able to drag his ass down here if it weren't for his devious plan that was unfolding at every second. _

_Eli busted out into a masochist laugh, the look in his eye turning evil when he approached the long-haired boy. "You just don't get it, do you DiMarco?" he paused, his voice laced with hatred. "You tortured me my entire high school life, and now?" he laughed again, throwing his head back as the loud sound busted through his chest, growling "It's time for your reward." He slowly pulled his hand from behind his back, revealing a large, rusty gambrel that he had stolen from his uncle's meat shop._

_Johnny continued to struggle against the chains that had sustained him, tears flowing down his muddy face as Eli stood over him, watching him try to break free of the tight chains. But his actions began to grow boring; he hadn't made any progress at all. _

_Eli didn't feel bad about what he was doing; hell no. In fact, he was proud to call himself crazy._

_He raised the hook and slashed it down into the side of Johnny's left arm with quick movements. The excruciatingly loud screams ripped through Johnny's chest, blood trickling down his masculine arm._

_Eli had only had this kind of experience one other time in his life and that was with Lucas Valieri about two or so months ago. Lucas was an easy kill; he never saw it coming either. Lucas would always sneak into the gym late at night so he could have the whole place to himself. All Eli had to do was cut some cords and wait for his plan to shine through. _

_Johnny was a bit tougher; however. It took weeks of just planning what kind of tool to use on him. There were many first and second options that involved a sledge hammer, and a nail gun. But he realized it would be too easy – Eli wanted to make this one exciting; something that took more effort than swinging a hammer a few times. He loved a challenge. _

_And as he stood here tonight, watching the boy he hated so much scream out in pain, he had no regrets. A smirk pulled onto his lips again and he swung the hook back another time, lunging it forward again; this time it was straight into his stomach._

_Johnny's blood curdling screams spread through the old, empty building. Johnny was close to dying, yet he would never be in as much pain as he caused Eli. "P-please stop." Johnny whimpered as the thick red liquid began to pour from the corners of his mouth and onto the concrete floor beneath him._

_The pain he was experiencing was so horrible that he would rather be shot in the head at this point. At least it would be fast and painless; as this was tearing his whole body into pieces, and it hurt like hell. _

_Eli laughed again. But not like a serial killer laugh he gave off before. This one was more of a playful chuckle as if the two of them were best friends playing a friendly game of "_Cops and Robbers_". Eli had officially lost anything left within him that was keeping him sane. _

_He raised the gambrel one last time, a crooked smile lying gently on his amused face as he threw it forward, meeting it with the left side of Johnny's neck. Blood spurt out of the new slash left in his corroded while a pool of blood continued to flow like a waterfall from his mouth. Eli jerked the hook away; pieces of Johnny's throat were stuck to the end of the hook. Eli smiled wider, looking down at the helpless; lifeless body that lay limp inches away from him. "Never fuck with Eli fucking Goldsworthy." He muttered. _

xxx

Eli shut the front door to his house tightly, not bothering to lock it behind him. His parents were still home and they had a gun to shoot anyone who might just try to rob the house. It's happened before, but Bullfrog, his dad, was entirely too drunk to even try. Let's just say that his aim was completely off and he shot a picture hanging on the wall instead. Bullfrog didn't shoot the robber at all, but his "warning shot" managed to scare him away. That guy jet out the door like someone was serving free chicken, too.

Quickly, Eli pulled out his car keys and jogged up to where his car was parked on the side of the road. He was still so behind on schedule and his boss was going to kill him for being so late.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye so he jerked himself around, his jade eyes colliding with a pair of warm brown ones. "Sorry," the small brunette apologized softly. Something about this girl seemed familiar to Eli. Maybe it was the way her hair was piled up into a messy bun at the top of her head, or the wacky attire she was wearing. Something about her really made Eli think. "I was just admiring your car – er, hearse." She flashed her teeth quickly, a gorgeous dimple sitting just below her right eye. "I have a thing for vintage so it really intrigues me."

Eli pinned his eyebrows together, examining her face closer which caused her to back away from him. She had seen him around school, and always heard rumours about him. She's heard things, like him being the strange kid who worked at a morgue and carried dead bodies in the back of his hearse. Imogen had always found Eli to be _interestingly different _in a way, so she definitely wouldn't mind getting to know him better. "Imogen Moreno," she chirped, outstretching her hand to him. He just stared down at it confusingly which made Imogen awkwardly pull her hand back. "So, you're Elijah Goldsworthy right? I go to Degrassi too."

"I prefer Eli if you don't mind, my dear Imogen." He told her darkly. Eli found himself to be charming in his own way. But the way he expressed it usually scared girls off…and some guys. Imogen nodded; slightly confused as to the way he decided to speak with such little emotion. "I'd love to stand here and talk to you more, Imogen, but I must be taking off for work now."

"Oh, of course." The young girl smiled widely. "Where, um…where do you work?"

"Crassly Cremations." He answered almost immediately. "Hey, I'll see you around." He smirked; finally some life coming back to him. "I could use a friend who has the same interests in vintage as me."

Imogen blushed a little, and Eli noticed this. She must be a hell of a lot different than most girls out there. Eli didn't know why, but something about him made everyone look down on him. He was just as normal as they were so it was stupid of them to judge him for the clothes he wore. "I'll see you later." And then he slid down into his vinyl car seat, starting the ignition almost immediately before driving out onto the long road which was showered with fresh leaves that were falling off of the many trees.

Getting to work almost every day was one of the biggest complications. There were so many assholes on the road that shouldn't have been allowed to get their license. He just wanted to slaughter every single one of them and ditch them somewhere; it would be a hell of a lot easier than dealing with their road rage and slow driving.

But surprisingly, the drive over to the crematorium wasn't as bad as it usually was - Eli only found himself yelling once at the jackass driving so slow in front of him.

As Eli hopped out of Morty with quick actions, he thought about Imogen. It was so weird, meeting her like that. It seemed like they had already met many of times in the past and he couldn't believe how familiar she looked.

Eli approached the building, holding up his saggy pants whilst he ran up the front steps and through the front door. "Sorry I'm late!" he exclaimed before he was just barely inside the place.

Eli's manager, Jeremy, turned himself around to look at his youngest and only employee. Jeremy was a middle aged man who had opened up his own business when he dropped out of high school so many years ago. He was married twice, both of his wives "mysteriously" being diseased by "unknown" causes. He had no kids, most of his family left him, and he enjoyed poker on the weekends. That's beside the point.

Jeremy was a very raw man to the people he hardly know. It takes weeks, sometimes months for him to hold an actual conversation with someone without being an ass.

Eli walked up to his boss slowly, smirking when he saw the copper urn sitting on top of the alter. "I see you've already taken care of what I've been meaning to do." Eli began. "Thanks, man. I'll just put that with the other one." Wrapping his skinny fingers tightly around the urn steadily, he picked it up and ran his thumbs over the silver plate. _J.D._

Of course Eli wasn't alone in his "activity". Jeremy is where he learned all of it from.

"I moved _L.V.s _urn to the back top shelf to make more room," Jeremy explained with a wink. "You owe me one, kid."

Eli smiled deviously. For every victim they each had, they would cremate their remains and set them all up in the basement. Jeremy had about forty or so of them while this was only Eli's second one; him recently starting out and all.

He headed to the back of the main room where the door to the basement sat opened wide for anyone to walk down. Normally, Jeremy would be very careful about keeping the door locked; but expecting Eli already, he didn't think it would make a difference. Eli slowly walked down the unsteady, creaky steps as complete darkness from the basement came over him, surrounding him completely while he continued to down-vance with the largest smile on his face.

_Eli was far from being sane, and he loved it. _

**I hope this isn't too bad of a start, but it's really the first "dark" thing I've written. I wish you all a happy Halloween and you should leave in the reviews what/who you're dressing up as since I'm a very nosey person. :) No, I just love you guys and I love Halloween. **


	2. demon alcohol

**Hello again my beautiful readers. ;P this chapter is going to be a little bit happier than the first one was, but it's also more of a filler. And if you haven't figured it out yet, Eli is bipolar in this story like he is in the show (but with a different turn) which is the reason for his quick mood changes. Just thought I should let you know. :) now, onward with the chapter my mighty steed! The hell cats await! …that sounded stupid. **

Eli had been sitting on his front step for about thirty minutes now, watching the cars drive down the road. It's not like he wanted to waste his time and sit out in the sun all day – he hated the summer heat. But he had no other option unless he wanted to listen to the distant sound of vicious screams, and glass behind shattered a few rooms over from him.

Both of his parents had been fighting ever since he woke up this morning; actually, they were the reason why he was awake so early in the first place. All of their constant screams and yells would get so annoying at times and he needed to find a way to get away from it. He had absolutely no friends to go out with so it's not like he could meet up with one instead of dying in the sizzling weather. Eli's life was hell and he couldn't deny it; when you really think about it, what purpose in life is there to live for? Absolutely nothing. He was only a tiny blip on the face of the earth; surrounded by billions and billions of people who were actually relevant here. Who would have any recognition of notice if he were gone? And that was pretty sad to admit – _even to himself._

The bright sun reflected off of anything possible to make its way onto Eli. He was sitting in the shade but he was still roasting in his all black attire and dark coloured hair. This is why he fucking hated summer. He never wore anything other than black, which for some stupid reason had to be the colour that attracted the heat the most.

"Hey again," a gentle voice spoke from in front of him. He recognized that voice from yesterday afternoon – it was laced with such beautiful venom that it caused his heart to flutter in his chest. It was pure velvet and made him feel very at ease. Something he hadn't felt in so long. He had no idea why this girl made him feel so warm and tingly on the inside, but he liked it.

"Hello…Imogen, right?" he asked sarcastically, smirking a little at the girl who looked down shyly at him. As if he could forget the name of a girl that was so beautiful. "Should I be concerned as to why you keep showing up at my house?"

Imogen laughed quietly before she sat down on the porch next to him, being sure to leave a little room between the two of them. "No, I just find you very interesting."

"Is that so?"

Imogen followed Eli's gaze out into the street. Sighing heavily as her mind began to wonder. Eli didn't seem at all like someone who liked enjoying the fresh air. The way he wore all black, guyliner, and drove a car that carries dead bodies made her believe he liked to hide out in the dark, writing depressing poems. That must be why they say to never judge a book by its cover.

_If only she knew…_

Eli noticed the anxious sigh Imogen heaved and he looked up into her brown eyes that shone under the light. He loved those eyes; he could spend hours at a time staring deep into them and he would be happy. "If you're bored, why are you sitting here?" he asked the brown-eyed girl, pinning his eyebrows together. Eli hasn't really had a friend in the sixteen years of his life so he didn't know how to talk to people his age. Well, other than the jerk-off bullies at school, but that was nothing like this.

Imogen shrugged her shoulders. "It's not like there's anything else to do. "

Eli smiled faintly. "Then we can be bored together."

It grew silent again, with the occasional heavy sighs and annoyed groans being caused from the endurance of the scorching heat wave.

Imogen's heart pounded in her chest when she looked away from him, flustered. Imogen had always thought Eli was attractive since she first saw him about two years ago at school. But until just recently, she was so terrified to approach him; her palms would get sweaty, her mouth would begin to dry out, and her stomach did backflips. Imogen would sometimes admire him from afar and try to get more information about him. She was a stalker but had forced herself to stop.

"I'm so hot!" Eli exclaimed, fanning himself with a piece of paper which had some research that he did for a new story of his.

Imogen gazed up at him, her smoldering eyes sparkling beautifully and her chest heaved with every breath she took. "I know," she sighed heavenly. Eli raised his eyebrows at the strange comment and scooted away from her slowly. "I mean," Imogen cleared her throat, looking away from him once again. "It's really hot out today so I agree with that statement." Imogen mentally cursed at herself, pursing her lips together as she stared down awkwardly at the ground.

Just moments later, the awkward moment was interrupted by Bullfrog stumbling out the front door, screaming at CeCe about losing a pound of the "green stuff" he kept under the bed. Bullfrog and CeCe didn't fight often, but when they did, it was over something stupid and they went all out on it; making such a huge deal of the fight.

Bullfrog drunkenly staggered down the steps, practically plowing Eli out of the way. Great. He was drunk and upset which didn't mix well for Bullfrog. He would get pissed off easily and sometimes be violent; Eli getting in his way might just set him off even more – in front of a guest. Eli stood up quickly, followed by Imogen who watched Bullfrog with wide eyes.

Bullfrog looked up at Eli's frightened expression with a beer bottle clenched tightly in his left hand. Someone was getting hurt today and it wasn't going to be very pretty.

"Bullfrog," Eli breathed, his eyes flickering over to Imogen who looked just as frightened as Eli. "I'm sorry for getting in your way. It won't happen aga-" but before he could finish his sentence, Eli found Bullfrog's fist being met with the side of his face aggressively. A loud _crunch _sound echoed through the slight wind, followed by a sudden gasp escaping Imogen's tight lips.

"What did I tell you? I am your father and you will address me as such! Have some respect, boy!"

"Sorry sir!" Eli practically yelled out, his breath being caught in his chest as an excruciating stinging sensation began to build up on the side of his face; a large black and purple bruise already starting there.

Every damn day Eli had to put up with Bullfrog beating him around the way he always had. His dad was next on his "list" but he didn't think he could ever work up the nerve to bump off his own father. Even though he was so hostile toward Eli, he still loved his dad and nothing could ever change that.

Without saying another word, Bullfrog limped down the driveway, kicking over a trashcan that sat at the corner of the street.

Eli looked up at Imogen again, who was staring at him blankly. She honestly had no idea what she just witnessed, but she did know that it was something she should be concerned over. "Are you okay?" she asked him slowly, afraid of what his response may be.

Eli just shrugged his shoulders and headed back up to the house. He knew already that this wasn't going to go well and he was honestly terrified of it. Bullfrog beating Eli was one of his biggest secrets; no one knew anything about it and he wouldn't dare tell anyone, not even his own mother. Now that someone found out his reason for being half as messed up at he was, he didn't know what he should say or do. He liked Imogen, and there's no way he would be able to do something so brutal to her over seeing something happening just once. A lot of dads lost it and sometimes hit their kids occasionally, didn't they? So he could still play it off as a rare thing. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Eli, I just saw –"

"You didn't see _anything_." He growled, his jade eyes turning dark.

Imogen nodded her head slowly. "I didn't see anything." She choked out, looking down at her feet. She knew that something was definitely going on with Eli and his dad but she _wasn't_ going to push him into admitting anything. Being in a previous relationship in which the guy constantly hit her, she could imagine how Eli was feeling right now.

"That's right." Eli smirked, pretending as if nothing even happened. "So do you want to come in? You like music don't you?"

Imogen smiled weakly before dashing up the stairs and following him into the house. Even though she hardly knew Eli, she was beginning to wonder if she lost her sanity. Going into a stranger's house wasn't the smartest thing she's done – probably one of the dumbest things since she had no recognition of what Eli's hobby was.

Imogen wasn't going to ignore what she saw moments ago, and she would be looking more into it later in the evening. It looks like it was time for her to go back to her favourite activity that she hadn't done in a while; it was time for her to watch Eli's every move. But it was for his own good; she would do anything to help.

She stepped into the dark house, a cool wave of the air conditioning hitting her face approvingly as she sighed happily and smiled. Getting up to almost a hundred degrees today, she's never felt more relieved to feel the cold air tingle off her tanned body. "So this is my pad. What do you think?" Eli asked her loudly, referring to the Victorian décor surrounding the living room.

"It's nice." Imogen told him, looking over the room a few times.

"You say you like vintage…" Eli trailed off. "Come up to my room and I'll show you a good collection of records and old books." He outstretched his hand for her, that oh-so attractive smirk forming on his face again. If she were to accept this offer, there was no doubt in her mind that she was stupid as all hell. But if that made her stupid, then so be it. She's always wondered what the inside of Eli's room looked like and there's no way she would pass this up.

Biting down on her bottom lip, Imogen gently cupped her hand on top of Eli's open palm. "Excellent." He purred, squeezing her hand in his. "Shall I show you the way?"

A shiver ran down Imogen's spine at the tone of his voice. She honestly had no clue why he was bullied all of the time; other than him being a little mysterious, he was a really nice and charming guy. But then again Imogen didn't know the truth about him.

A mischievous grin wiped across Eli's face as he pulled Imogen slowly down the hall to find his room.

Imogen's heart pounded in her chest when she tried to pull her hand away, but he only tightened his grip on her. Maybe trusting Eli was a bad idea; but all he wanted was to have a friend. He threw the door to his bedroom open and flicked on the light, exposing his horribly messy room and pulled Imogen through the door hastily.

She seriously should have never set foot into this house. "Hope you like Ozzy," Eli said cheerfully, dragging the needle on the player.

Imogen crossed her arms over her chest and shook nervously as she scanned over the items on his walls. Posters of half-naked women with blood and knifes surrounding the carcass scared her the most. Another thing would be a collage of obituaries on the wall behind his door; it was like he was obsessed or interested in the death of people.

Music blasted through the room and Imogen's thoughts were interrupted by Eli's hand being slammed down on her shoulder. "Dance with me, lovely lady?" Eli laughed.

Unsure, Imogen nodded her head and begun to spin around the room adventuring. Screaming out some of the lyrics to his favourite Sabbath song, Eli continued to throw his body every which way passively. This was the first time Eli had felt like an actual teenager and enjoyed himself. Imogen giggled. "You know, I thought you were bringing me up here to date-rape me." she admitted over the loud music.

Eli scoffed jokingly. "You wish."

**I promise you the next chapter will have some more horror goodness. :) but I would love to hear feedback, and maybe some suggestions for this story if it isn't too much to ask. It's actually quite difficult to find "natural" items to use to kill someone. Yeah…I even tried googling it. lol thank you for reading, and chapter three will be posted soon. **


	3. i don't wanna stop

**So I was going to update this a few days ago, but the website was being annoying and wouldn't let me log in. =/ but I'm here now, and hope you haven't forgotten about me. :) I believe I'll only be posting one more chapter of this until I have to take a break from updating for a while; I'm going to be a little busy around Christmas and New Years so I won't exactly have the time. BUT when I do get back, I'll most likely be putting up two chapters in the same day for you guys. I also have planned a few more one shots, and maybe a new three shot coming soon. I'll stop talking now and let you read.**

**Um… there will be a few somewhat homophobic remarks in this chapter, and violence… of course there's going to be violence. What's a fucked-up, dark and crazy story without the violence? **

Eli strode into the school, his head held high. It was his first day back to Degrassi after the surprisingly long summer break he had just had and there was no doubt that he felt way more confident about this year. But all that could change very quickly and easily.

Eli's thoughts about a new, twisted and dark book he was reading were interrupted when he suddenly felt someone grab onto his right arm. He looked down to see Imogen gazing up at him, the largest smile pulling at the corners of her lips. Over the past few days, she and Eli had become really good, close friends. They had so much more in common with each other than both of them thought they would. Eli had found himself beginning to slowly become more cheery whenever Imogen was around; she was a real friend here to stay. Eli's never had a friend before, so all of this was still very new to him. As for Imogen, she's never had a friend quite like Eli; she knew there was something off about him and she would someday find out what that 'something' was. Eli was a good friend to Imogen – all of her other friends were mean and awful to her; excluding her and making snarky comments about her persona. And Eli didn't seem to mind how weird she was; it was something he truly liked about her, knowing for a fact that he wasn't the only strange person on this earth.

Owen Milligan laughed at the two as he approached them in the hallway. "Aww, Emo-Boy isn't a faggot after all; he found a girlfriend, how cute."

Imogen quickly pulled away from Eli's arm, leaning up against a set of lockers when she quietly stated "he's not my boyfriend."

Owen nodded and twisted his fingers between Imogen's chocolate brown locks, bringing the curls up to his nostrils to inhale the delicious sent of her vanilla shampoo. "That's good, baby, because I have my eyes set on you." Owen…where to begin on Owen Milligan, the school homophobe and male sleaze. Owen never used to be the way he is now until the love of his life dumped him for some other guy that she met at Bible study years ago. He started not to trust girls at all anymore, and turned into a jerk that only used them for her body and his own personal pleasure. As for the homophobic side of him; Owen never used to be that bad. He would make a few jokes here and there, but he was never against or afraid of homosexuals by any means until he had found out about his brother being who he was. He and his brother Tristan used to be so close to each other until the day he walked in on Tristan kissing on some random guy he'd never met before. Although, Owen always knew that his brother was gay by the "diva-ish" ways he had acted, but he never wanted to admit it to himself.

"Get away from her, scumbag." Eli growled, forcefully shoving Owen away from his newest friend. Eli wasn't looking for a fight, but he would gladly give Owen what he needed if he touched Imogen like that again. All girls needed to be treated with respect.

Owen laughed almost humourously while slowly making his way up to Eli until they were just an inch apart. "Do you want to fight me?"

"No," Eli told the taller student through his clenched teeth, panic lacing his voice. Why was he so intimidated by Owen? He had no reason to be at all; Eli would always win the argument at the end of the day anyway, and all of this was a huge waste of time for the both of them. Owen tormenting him like this would only make it a lot more enjoyable.

Owen shook his head, gently pushing Eli a step back. "Whatever dude, I got things to do."

Eli threw his hands up in defense; smiling smugly up at Owen as he watched him turn back down the direction he had come from. His eyes shone flagitiously when he looked down at Imogen. "I'll make sure he doesn't touch you again. You do not want to get infatuated with that guy."

Imogen rolled her eyes playfully and pressed out the wrinkles in her shirt-dress lightly with the tips of her gentle fingers. "I hadn't noticed."

"Let me walk you to your first class?"

xxx

Owen cursed under his breath when he lazily tossed a bowl of leftover, unwanted food scraps from dinner into the field beside his house. A fresh bruise sat below his left eyes after taking a fist to the face just moments ago. He honestly hated his brothers more than anything – all they did was beat Owen up; spat vigorously in his face, and told him he needed to be a better fighter. But Owen was an amazing fighter – one of the best at Degrassi. It was completely unfair to him when his brothers decided to fight him. Five against one was entirely rule-breaking and impossible to handle.

Owen poked at the bruise with his index finger, flinching at the sharp pain that jolted through his veins. He would do anything to prevent putting up with his brothers' bullshit anymore. _He'd rather die than to get beaten up repeatedly by them._

A ruffling sound came from the dark behind him and he groaned, assuming it were his brothers come to beat him again. "Fight me then, you dickwads!" Owen yelled into the night, shivering at freezing gust of wind blowing in his face. "I'm not scared!" But that was a lie. Everything was a lie; he was so afraid of them that he spent many of his nights freezing butt on the side of the road somewhere. He absolutely hated coming home to this everyday – there were no escapes; no way out.

Eli stepped out from the shadows, his face shining under the streetlights beside Owen's house. Owen sighed in relief when he saw it was the biggest freak at Degrassi rather than his hostile brothers. He was seconds away from taking his anger out on that pretty little face of Eli's – but that might actually be a lot harder than he would have ever thought.

"The fuck are you doing at my house, queer?" Owen sneered, his fists clenching at his sides as he slowly approached the young boy dressed in all black.

Eli laughed quietly and looked down at his feet, his heart pounding in his chest. It wasn't that he was nervous at all, nor did he feel bad about watching his brothers beat the shit out of him. Owen Milligan deserved it after all the shit he had put on Eli. "I wouldn't talk to me like that if I were you," Eli told him almost amusingly.

"Was that a threat?" Owen scoffed.

"Sure was." He smiled smugly.

"What could you possibly do to hurt me?"

Eli shook his head and laughed again. He was honestly tired of putting up with all of Owen's crap. He reached out for the weed whacker that was leaning up against the side of Owen's garage, quickly reeving it up.

Owen backed up from the metal object, his hands flying up to protect his face out of instinct. "Man, what are you doing?"

Eli smiled widely, teasing Owen by fake thrusting the whacker toward his torso. "Not so great when the tables are turned, eh?"

Owen backed up again, his feet sinking back into the fresh mud setting in the bare field from the late evening showers that hit earlier. Eli cackled, rolling his eyes as he slowly continued to lead him back. "Relax, it's impossible to severely hurt someone with one of these." He turned the whacker off and looked up at Owen through his dark bangs that flow gently down his forehead, over his green eyes.

Owen sighed in relief. There was no way he could express how scared he just was. But being Owen, he would never admit that to anyone. He shrugged it off, glancing at Eli again that suddenly had a strong look of evil in his jaded eyes. Owen grinned up at him. "You really had me going, buddy." Owen may have been more stupid than Eli had thought. Who knows how many times he'd been held back?

Eli looked down at the weed whacker grinning darkly, while Owen watched him with narrow eyes. Just in case it might save his ass from this freak, he punched Eli's shoulder playfully. "You're actually pretty funny; maybe we should hang out sometime. Sneak into some movies downtown?" Owen suggested with a shrug.

Eli smiled and looked down at his shoes once again. "Not what I had in mind." He slowly pulled the weed whacker over his shoulder as he threw it forward, landing the heavy piece of metal into the side of Owen's head. And he fell to the damp ground with a thump. There were times when Eli questioned ever wanting to hurt…not too innocent people, but then he remembered they all deserve what they got. What comes around goes around. Besides, he was also saving other people who may become involved in the same way. Eli has been several times – so it's not like he was being selfish about anything.

He struggled trying to lift Owen up off of the ground since he was two times bigger than Eli was. Maybe thinking through this plan would have helped.

xxx

Imogen stumbled through her front door in a fit of laughter. She had been out partying with some of her friends from school and she was so hammered that she was surprised she could remember how to get back home. The party was a way of saying goodbye to summer and hello to a semester of cramming for exams and waking up incredibly early. Of course Imogen had to go to this party; it was her last chance to let loose because of the new school year.

The light in the foyer flicked on, causing Imogen to shield her eyes from the lucent light bulbs shining down on her. "_Imogen Rose_," her mother growled from before her. "Tell me you're not drunk."

Imogen removed her hands from her eyes and nodded her head several times quickly. "Yes, I'm trashed." Imogen giggled uncontrollably. Imogen wasn't much of a drinker, but when she did occasionally drink, it was of large intakes which resulted into this. The sad thing is, Imogen had promised herself that she wouldn't let it get this far tonight, but the alcohol was calling to her all night and she couldn't say no. There was no doubt that she would be feeling this get back at her tomorrow while she still had to endure sitting through class and try to act interested in what was being taught.

Her mom huffed angrily and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring down the girl who was entirely clueless as to what was going on around her. "Go to bed, and we will discuss this in the morning when you're sober." She hissed through clenched teeth.

Imogen hiccupped as she brushed passed her mom. There's no way she was going to bed just yet; it may be late but she wasn't finished with her night of fun. She blindly made her way up the stairs by crawling weakly up them on her hands and knees.

xxx

Eli dragged Owen's heavy body into the large storage closet of an old factory that was located in Ajax. Why did he insist on driving so out of the way this late at night to take care of something things when there were plenty of places near home? Oh right, because he was a lunatic.

If you would have told Eli six months ago that he would turn into a serial killer, he may have laughed in your face or call you insane. Eli liked people – he always had, unless they messed with him, then he would hate the shit out of them and desperately want to throw them in front of a bus. Never would he ever think he would slaughter his bullies with sharp or strange objects.

Just as Eli placed the Carbon Monoxide mask securely over Owen's mouth and nose, his phone buzzed loudly in his back jean pocket. He sighed and turned the highly toxic gas all the way up before he clicked 'answer' on the phone. Who would be calling him anyway at this hour? The number didn't look familiar, and he knew it wasn't CeCe or Bullfrog. At least, he hoped it wasn't either of them – he didn't feel like putting up with any of their shit. "Hello?" Eli answered almost right away, the sound of annoyance in his voice. He didn't at all respect someone interrupting something so important for him to finish before getting caught.

"Hey Eli," that beautiful velvet voice spoke on the other side of the line. He felt his heart skip a beat in his chest as he nervously swallowed the lump in his throat.

Why did she make him feel this way just by speaking very few words? She had the most mesmerizing voice and Eli could listen to her speak for hours without any complaints. "Imogen," Eli breathed. "Hey, you're up pretty late."

She giggled quietly, covering her lips with the tips of her fingers softly. "I was thinking about you."

Eli smiled to himself, looking down at his shoes shyly. Damn you, Imogen Moreno for making him feel so light! He noticed that she had been acting a little strange but he wasn't going to question her about it. Eli was much more curious as to how she had gotten his number and why she was even calling him so damn late. It was almost four in the morning, so that wasn't creepy at all…

Eli shut the closet door, taking one more glance at Owen to make sure he was still inhaling the deathly substance. "Were you, now?" he cleared his throat roughly, trying to get rid of the sudden scratchiness in his voice. Eli liked Imogen – but he knew the feelings would never be requited. She was insanely gorgeous; there was just a_ jene sais quoi_ about her. Whatever it was, Eli found himself becoming very attracted to it.

"Why don't you come over?" she questioned, her voice becoming quieter with each word.

Eli chewed on his bottom lip; his slim fingers gripping the hard plastic cellphone which was propped up against his ear. Normally, he would jump on that offer, anything to spend more time with Imogen. But he was a little pre-occupied with something a bit more important that he couldn't just leave behind to go spend time with her. Why did she want to hang out so late on a school night anyway? Both of them had to be awake in less than two hours. There's no possibly way they could make it the night without crashing during first period tomorrow morning.

"It's getting late…" he told her with a sigh. "You get your rest; we can skip our classes tomorrow." Eli wouldn't usually suggest something that would deliberately get someone he liked in trouble, but he did need a little fun every once in a while. After missing the Degrassi bonfire tonight, he was already pretty pissed off.

Imogen thought for a minute and nodded her head quickly. "Sounds great!" she squealed on the other side of the line. "I'll meet you at the Dot tomorrow afternoon."

"It's a date." Eli smiled faintly, unaware that his choice of wording may make their friendship a little more than a lot awkward.

xxx

Eli opened the doors to the ancient metal plated incinerator, a gush of heated air pouring out onto him abruptly. Eli must have been crazy staying out until eight in the morning to "take care" of Owen Milligan's body. Apparently the Carbon Monoxide machine was broken so more than five breaths wasn't good enough to make it to his lungs fast enough.

Turning his body into ashes took longer than an hour's time since he was alone at the crematorium and didn't want to burn the place down. He had only used the incinerator few times with his boss by his side so he didn't feel comfortable turning it up all the way in the least bit.

All he could think about was seeing Imogen in a few hours. As soon as he was finished up at the crematorium…

xxx

Imogen waddled out of the washroom and into her small-sized bedroom tiredly. After her large intake of alcohol last night, her memory was a little foggy so she had very little recognition of what had happened. The only thing she could really remember was falling asleep in the tub and calling Eli, but she couldn't remember anything she said. But considering she was drunk at the time, she couldn't even begin to imagine what she could have said to him. Pulling out her cellphone from her back pocket, she sighed heavily and began to dial Eli's cell number.

She had woken up with the words "I love Elijah Goldsworthy" written on her arm in permanent marker; she tried scrubbing it off with soap and water but it only made her forearm bright red from the pressure. She would have a lot of explaining to do to Eli if he were to see that. It was a stupid crush, and if he knew about it she would be screwed in the ass.

Imogen placed the phone up to her ear as Eli answered almost immediately. "Hey Immy," Eli purred. Imogen's heart skipped a beat in her chest, her breath getting caught in her throat. She's never heard him talk like that; in a seductive tone. What the hell did they talk about last night? There was only one way to find out.

Imogen let out a shaky breath and fell back down onto the bed gently. "Eli…" she gulped. "I was just calling to ask what we talked about last night. Over the phone, I mean."

Eli placed the plastic urn next to his other two that he had created as he balanced the phone between his ear and shoulder. He knew that there was something about her that was different when he last spoke to her; she was drunk off her ass. Eli grinned deviously, listening to Imogen's unsteady breaths from the other side of the line. "You mentioned how _badly _you wanted to have sex with _all of this_. Don't you remember, Imogen?"

"I-I did?" she stuttered, her eyes widening.

Eli laughed quietly as he held the phone away from him so Imogen couldn't hear his distant chuckles. He absolutely loved joking around with people the way that he did. He knew it was wrong, but it was too damn funny for him to even care. "Yeah," he breathed, purposely lacing his voice seduction. "You seemed pretty excited about it." There was long pause on her side as he smirked and began to travel up the stairs to the main office of his place of work. "So tell me, does that offer still stand?"

Imogen felt her face turn different shades of red. She may have been very book smart, but she was also fooled very easily. "Eli, I am so sorry." She groaned apologetically. Never in her life had she felt more embarrassed in a situation. "I was so wasted from the bonfire last night…"

"I know." He laughed again. "Relax, I was kidding. You told me you wanted to hang out and that was all. What you wanted to do with me was your business…so are we still up for the Dot later?"

"The Dot…?" she huffed and sat up in the bed quickly. "Eli Goldsworthy, I am going to kill you!"

Eli smiled softly to himself. "By all means, do so…at the Dot in an hour?"

_Ms. Moreno, how gullible of you._

**The next chapter will be taking place on their "date" at the Dot… at least, I believe that's what I have written. =P Anyways, reviews are what gets me through the day so help a sister out? ;) I shall be back soon with the fourth chapter of Sanctuary. **


	4. life won't wait

**It's short, I know. But I plan on having next chapter being a bit longer than usual since it's going to be a pretty busy chapter. ;) By the cliffhanger at the end of this one, you can use your imagination as to how the next will be planned out. I was just looking at the outline I have written for chapter five… and yeah, it's very surprising, even for me and I'm the writer. **

The air was surprisingly cool for it being mid-afternoon at the beginning of September. Imogen was actually quite shocked when she stepped outside in her short-sleeved black sweater dress and wacky polka dot tights. With a hangover, she thought she would have to fight her stomach from disagreeing with her in the sizzling heat. But the sun had hidden beneath the clouds and Toronto had begun to face the first hint of fall weather. Never would Imogen think she would be happy about the chilled breeze in September, but the fresh air made her stomach relax.

Imogen approached the popular café excitedly when she noticed Eli's hearse was already parked on the side of the street. She was a little nervous meeting him, though; after the awkward phone conversation this morning and of what he was trying to pull with her.

She pushed through the door, her attention automatically being averted to Eli who was sitting tall at the counter. A mixture of Degrassi students filled the room as well; school must have just recently let out for lunch. As Imogen pushed through two grade nines, she sat at the counter beside another familiar face who was sitting next to Eli. Adam Torres had been one of Imogen's friends since he started at Degrassi last year. They bumped into each other in the hall; he helped her pick up her things and walked her to class. They'd also shared a similar interest in movies and video games so she would go over to his house often and would occasionally stay the night. They did kiss once… it was awkward and they both thought it would be best to forget about it and pretend nothing ever happened. Adam was with Bianca DeSousa now, Imogen's best friend, and he couldn't be with any other girl who made him feel as happy. He felt like he could be himself around her, and he loved her more than anything else in the world.

"Hey Adam," Imogen greeted happily, a large smile pulling at the corners over her lips gracefully. "I see you've met Eli."

Eli nodded his head softly at her while Adam tucked Imogen's loose brown curls behind her ear softly.

"Yeah, I was just telling Eli that he should come over and play some x-box sometime." He rolled his eyes playfully. "If I can ever find that controller,"

"It's been three months and you still haven't found it?" Imogen laughed. Adam had always been known as losing his prized possessions quite often. Drew must have been pissed at him for misplacing it; a missing controller means no brother-against-brother on Call of Duty.

He shrugged and pushed his half-empty coffee over to Imogen who was looking greener and greener by the second. She was never drinking again; yeah if only that was the rule she lived by. "Dawes is going to murder me for being late for class again, so I should be going. Have fun skipping, Imo." He kissed her cheek gingerly, and stood from his seat before quickly disappearing from the Dot Grill.

"And then there were two," Eli joked, sipping his coffee awkwardly. Eli never knew what to say when he was around Imogen. Ever since they met in the middle of the summer, his feelings for her would grow more and more whenever he saw her. When had he become so damn soft? "You look pretty sick," he pointed out after a moment. "How drunk were you last night?"

Imogen laughed awkwardly. "After they brought out the booze at the party, everything else is a huge blur. I just hope I wasn't involved in a giant orgy with random old dudes."

Eli's eyes widened as he cleared his throat roughly. "That's a joke right?"

"Yes," Imogen rolled her eyes. "So what did you do while the rest of the school was partying it up and getting totally hammered? Were there any good chick flicks on TV?" She took a large gulp of the nasty tasting lukewarm coffee Adam had left for her to have. The Dot may have had amazing burgers, wings and fries, but when it came down to coffee it was the worst she'd ever tasted.

"I stayed home to write," he lied. As if he were to tell her what he actually did while she was getting drunk. _I just went over to Owen Milligan's house, knocked him the fuck out with a weed whacker, and then proceeded to burn his lungs to pieces with a very lethal gas. You know the usual._

"What were you writing about?"

Eli pinned his eyebrows together as he looked down at Imogen's lit-up face. She was glowing. "You ask more questions than a four year old." Imogen smiled, looking down at her hands shyly. "You have a beautiful smile." _Don't blush, don't blush, whatever you do, don't fucking blush. _She told herself over and over again in her head. But the blood boiling through her veins decided to object to her request – a light blush stung at her cheeks vibrantly, an embarrassed smirk now placed on her face. Well at least she wasn't grinning like an idiot. "Are you warm?" Eli asked her casually as he ran a cool finger over her soft pink cheek. "You're a little flushed."

"I'm fine," she told him in barely a whisper as her eyes wandered every detain upon Eli's perfectly angel kissed face. Had he always been so breathtakingly beautiful? Imogen had always found a strange attraction to him, but it was different now. Every time she looked at him, her heart pounded out of her chest so hard to where she felt like passing out, and her stomach jumped up into her throat. She had caught herself gazing at him at the most inappropriate times; having graphic thoughts about him that she knew she shouldn't be having. And it hurt her to know those feelings would never be requited. She might as well give up now while she was ahead. It was painful to think she would never get what she wanted from him – she wanted him to feel the same way she did whenever Imogen looked at him. It was such a great, yet torturous sensation that she didn't even know how to begin to explain.

Eli smiled slightly at the girl and reluctantly pulled his hand away to rest it back in his lap. "If you're not feeling well, I'll drive you home to lie down."

"No," she responded almost immediately. "The more time I spend away from home, the better." She sighed sadly, looking away from him slowly as she began to scan the small café. The students had already cleared out and it was just the two of them left sitting alone at the counter. "But I think we should get out of here before we get in trouble for skipping."

Peter looked up at Imogen as he threw a dish rag over his shoulder and firmly placed his hands down on the counter. "Degrassi staff never usually comes up here during school hours. Although, Simpson has a habit of spontaneously buying some coffees and Danish."

Eli and Imogen exchanged a quick glance before she arisen from her seat. "I'm not going to risk getting caught again. Let's just go back to your house or something." She spoke directly to Eli now. He chugged the rest of his coffee, his face scrunching up while the hot thick liquid rolled down his throat; he stood up and slapped a few bills down as he did so.

Imogen's eyes wandered down to Eli's chest, her attention quickly being grabbed by a large red stain just below the collar of his gray shirt. What was that? She wondered as she slowly shifted away from him. It sort of looked like… "Is that your blood?" she spoke quietly, nodding toward the stain.

He looked at her confusingly for a moment before following her gaze down to his shirt. "Shit." He muttered to himself.

**Just sit tight, lovelies. :) I'm working on writing out the next chapter as you read this little a/n .**


	5. let me hear you scream

**Hello again! Before I let you read, I wanted to warn you of some things. There will be bloodshed obviously, Imogen is alone in the bathroom for several minutes and she does something to herself (I just made that sound really nasty. It's really not what that sentence makes it seem), and there will be a new character; Josette O'Hare who comes in to stir things up between Eli and Imo.**

_Imogen's eyes wandered down to Eli's chest, her attention quickly being grabbed by a large red stain just below the collar of his gray shirt. What was that? She wondered as she slowly shifted away from him. It sort of looked like… "Is that your blood?" she spoke quietly, nodding toward the stain._

_He looked at her confusingly for a moment before following her gaze down to his shirt. "Shit." He muttered to himself._

Eli scanned the empty diner quickly, his eyes suddenly finding everything in the room highly, and somewhat strangely interesting to him. "Those are really pretty drapes," he laughed nervously. "I wonder where they found such… amazing… and, uh," he shifted from his right leg to his left. "They're very polka-doty. Purpley."

Imogen sighed anxiously. "Did you fuck a girl while she was on her period or what?" she looked away from him and shook her head. "I just asked a simple question because…"

"Because what?"

"Because I thought we could have something to relate to. But all you want to do is look at fucking curtains and comment about how pretty looking they are." Eli snickered at her comment. If she went out murdering everyone who ever said one thing to her that she didn't like, then the two of them would have more in common than Eli would have ever thought. Unless she was talking about the 'fucking girls on her period'; that would be a little weird. "I'm glad all of this comes off as a joke to you, Eli," she looked up at him, her big browns eyes filling with tears. "I'm sorry I bothered you with my time."

Imogen tried pushing by Eli, but he grabbed her hand and gently pulled her back to face him; her chest slammed into his. "Just listen to me," he told her, his voice getting slightly quieter with each word as he gazed down into her eyes. "All you do is talk and talk, but you never want to listen."

"You never give me the chance –"

"Imogen," He interrupted. "See what I mean?" Imogen nodded slightly, and looked away from him shyly. She honestly wasn't even in the mood for Eli's little games at the moment. Any other time, she would be thrilled to have Eli spending time with her. Hell, she's dreamed about him getting so close to her like he was right now. She simply wasn't in the mood now that he feels he can just joke about everything that came in his way. "You're my friend," he breathed, his zephyr breath beating against Imogen's flushed face. "It's not my blood. There's your answer."

Imogen's lips parted slightly, she leaned closer to him and inhaled sharply. "Then whose is it?"

"I think it's from…" he paused shortly and looked around to make sure someone didn't decide to sneak into the Dot when he wasn't paying attention for them to overhear. "I sort of beat Owen Milligan over the head with a weed whacker." She stared at him, emotionless. "I guess some of his blood got on me,"

After a few minutes of an exchanged glance between the two passed, Imogen finally pulled her hand away from his and shook her head. "Very amusing," she half-laughed. "Don't tell me if you don't want to. It was just to make conversation anyway…"

"I'm actually…telling the truth? I like you, Imo; you're a really good friend." Eli smirked. "I beat him up because he used to bully me."

"Used to?"

"Not anymore,"

"Jesus, you didn't kill him did you?"

"You're funny," he laughed quietly

"Whatever Eli, I'm going home okay?" and with that, she turned on her heel and stepped out of the Dot, running to her apartment that was just a few minutes away, Eli watching after her as she went.

xxx

Imogen slid down the wall in her washroom, the door locked as she cried softly to herself. For over a year, Imogen had been dealing with severe depression. It mostly started back when her dad died in a horrendous head-on collision while on a work trip over the summer. He was driving down to New York for his very first meeting on the series when he fell asleep at the wheel and was thrown from a semi-truck heading in the opposite lane.

Imogen and her dad were always very close – her mom had a bit of an anger issue and would almost always be in such a terrible mood, so she took it out on her family.

Imogen stared straight ahead at the sink cabinet that sat right across from her. She had gone several months without hurting herself, but she couldn't take all of this stress anymore. Her life was filled with such dark despair – it was almost as if she were continuously falling into a black abyss of anxiety and nothingness. She needed an escape from all the pain she's been feeling. She could no longer stand screaming, hoping someone will hear her cries.

As she quickly thrust herself toward the cabinet and dug around for what she desperately needed, she prayed to God – if there was a God – that he could do anything to stop her since she was too weak to stop herself. Imogen wasn't a very religious person, but she did believe that there was some force of energy out there that could her pleading; she only hoped it was the good kind of energy.

She finally found her favourite razor, and sat up anxiously; her fingers brushed slightly over the end of the sharp razor.

Imogen chewed on her bottom lip and rolled up her sleeve slowly, preparing herself for what was to come. She so desperately needed someone to stop her. She would answer to anything, but she absolutely couldn't go through with what she was planning. Imogen had so much left to live for, and she knew that. But it was like she didn't care anymore – about anything.

_She couldn't care._

Imogen slowly pressed the edge of the razor into the middle of her wrist, silent tears flowing down her cheeks as she dragged the razor across her shaky, pale arm.

Gliding it down her arm again, she whispered unsteadily to herself, "please give me a sign that I'm wanted here."

The only person who knew about hew depression was her mom; her mother had always worried about her daughter and wondered why there were always blood stains on the sleeves of every long-sleeved shirt that Imogen owned, but she didn't bother to even ask what was going on with her.

Just as Imogen was about to slice the razor down the throbbing blue vein that was covered by a layer of fresh blood, her phone rang on the floor beside her. Through her tears, she read the name "ELI" come across the screen.

A sad smile formed on her pained face and she dropped the razor, reaching eagerly for the phone. "There is a God," she answered, ignoring the unsettling, warm liquid pouring down her weak fingertips.

"What?" Eli asked her, confused. "I was calling to see if you were okay." _And I wanted to hear that beautiful voice of yours, _he so badly wanted to say. "You ran out of there pretty quickly yesterday, and you weren't in school today. I was worried about you."

She sighed in relief and reached for a bleach white towel hanging from the side of the tub. It looked new, and she was about to dye it a rather dark red colour. _Sorry for ruining your things, mother dearest. _"Meet me at the park," she told him softly. "It's urgent… there's something I really need to talk to you about. "

Eli cleared his throat nervously on the other end of the phone. "…kay," he croaked before the line when dead.

xxx

Imogen parked her bike in the parking-lot of the park, taking off her helmet and shaking out her long curls that flow beautifully down her back. She hadn't brought her motorcycle out since before her dad had died last year, so it felt good to go for a ride after so long. Going out on her bike rides was always a way for her to clear her head. She definitely needed to get some fresh air today after being under so much stress lately.

Imogen noticed Eli's hearse was parked just a few feet away from her, so she walked up into the wooded park, looking around for her favourite boy wearing black. This was the day she would finally tell Eli how she truly felt about him. There wasn't a doubt in her mind how nervous and sick to the stomach she was now feeling.

There Eli sat, on a bench under the biggest shade tree in the park. Directly across from where he sat was a large body of water that glistened beautifully under the bright summer sun. It was a lot hotter out today than it was when she met Eli at the Dot yesterday.

As she approached the bench, she saw there was another figure sitting there rather close to Eli; female. Imogen hurried to the bench and smiled sadly at Eli who looked like he was having a joyful discussion with his _lady friend _whom Imogen had never seen before in her life.

"Oh hey, Imogen," Eli smiled when he finally looked up from the mystery girl's pale face. The girl looked over Imogen's attire and gave her a disgusted look, like she couldn't stand the sight of her; she wasn't very fond of Imogen already and they haven't met more than a moment ago. "Imo, this is Josette." He introduced. "We met last year at a writer's retreat over the summer and each had the hot's for each other." Well that was blunt. But of course he wasn't going to tell her there weren't any feelings there at all; they only fooled around the entire summer while Imogen was grieving over the loss of her father. "She just moved down here from Montréal, can you believe that?"

Josette smiled slightly, her dark brown curls falling down over her brown eyes. As Imogen looked at her, her mouth gaping, she noticed a familiarity about her; Josette had the same chocolate eyes as she did. And they weren't just similar, they were dead-on identical.

"I'm Imogen," she greeted, lacing her voice with a dash of happiness; but anyone could see she was far from being happy. And didn't Imogen tell Eli it was something she really wanted to talk to him about? What gave him the idea he could bring his stuck-up, French, ex-girlfriend along with him?

"Je t'adore your glasses, _Imogen._" She spoke in a heavy French accent as she arisen to kiss either of Imogen's cheeks. "You are very pretty," the girl said deviously. Obviously everything she was saying to her were lies; Josette was an ignorant little bitch and Imogen could see right through her little charade. "I am Josette O'Hare, it is very nice to meet you."

"O'Hare?" Imogen questioned. "That's not very French, is it?"

Josette stared at Imogen for a minute, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with her. She came off very weird to her, like she had been dropped several times on the head as a child. She scrunched up her face and stood tall, "my birth father is from Chicago." She straightened out her long black dress, with the tips of her fingers pressing out the wrinkles as she turned back to face Eli who was now standing. Josette practically smacked Imogen in the face with her long hair when she turned around. "Elijah, my love," she purred, taking his face between her soft palms. Imogen refused to lose Eli to this slut. "I must return home to help mother finish unpacking. You'll call me later, yeah?" Josette gently pressed her lips to Eli's, running her tongue along his bottom lip before she pulled away from him.

Imogen felt her lip quiver, but she couldn't look away from the two. She was crushed.

Eli smirked and slowly opened his eyes to look over Josette's gorgeous face, his eyes locking on her stunning beauty mark that lie just above her lip. "You can count on it."

Imogen's eyes teared, her vision becoming blurry while she watched Josette walk out of sight quickly, almost tripping a few times in her high-heels. Imogen felt like she was about to pass out; her chest now had an extremely large hole in it after taking a two-by-four straight to the heart. They say, after you've been crushing on someone for three months of longer, you're already in love with them; she wasn't quite that far, but she might as well be. Her feelings for Eli were strong, and she would never deny that to herself, or to anyone else.

"Imo?" Eli questioned worriedly, grabbing onto her tight shoulders. He looked into her eyes, and his heart began to speed up when he noticed how hurt and torn she clearly was. He didn't know why she was feeling this way, but he could see it in her eyes. She shook her head quickly and tried to push him away from her. "Will you please tell me what's wrong with you? What did you want to tell me?"

She continued to struggle pushing, slapping, and shoving Eli away but she was entirely too weak. "Imogen!" he tried to calm her down, gripping her left wrist tightly while Imogen cried out in pain.

"You've hurt me enough, just let me go!" she tried twisting her wrist away from Eli's tight hold, and she could feel her fresh cuts tear open again. Blood seeped through her sleeve, and Eli took notice in this. His eyes widened, he let up on his hold, but this time his arms found themselves being wrapped around her waist. Eli had suffered a past of what was happening to Imogen, so he immediately knew what he had witnessed. Imogen finally gave up, her face burying into his shoulder.

"Whatever it was that I did, I'm so sorry," Eli whispered. He knew that he was the reason for what she was doing. He must have been so blind to not have realized what was going on before, but then again it's been months since she just now relapsed, before they even really met for the first time.

"Josette," Imogen said weakly. "She's your girlfriend…" she pulled back from him slowly and rubbed her wrist with her other hand. She was crazy; she had lost everything inside of her that was keeping her together. It must make her sound like a jealous bitch to be acting this way about a girl she just met, but it was what she was truly feeling. Imogen didn't realize until now how clueless Eli really was about her having such strong affection toward him; it hurt her to know she will never be loved by him like that Josette would. But what made her think she would even have a chance with him in the first place?

"No," he told her truthfully. "We're hardly friends… why should that bother you?"

Why did boys have to be so stupid that they couldn't even realize when a girl was dropping the biggest hints? It drove Imogen absolutely insane! Everything she's been doing since they became friends was trying to make Eli know there was something between them; trying to get him to like her as well.

Imogen looked down at her feet and choked out another sob while she tried to calm herself down. "I like you…" she whispered shakily. "There, I said it. I know there's no way you could ever like someone like me anyway." She admitted sadly, her head still hung low. "Josette is stunning! She's French, beautiful, she has a gorgeous body; everything that I don't have. And I'm just me."

Eli could only listen now; he didn't know how to respond in any way. But at least he now knew his feelings for Imogen were returned, that was a huge relief for him. And Imogen was extremely beautiful, but he could never find the words to describe to Imogen just how beautiful she truly was, there were simply not enough minutes in the day to do so. "I think you're gorgeous," he told her with a gentle smile. He reached for Imogen's hand once more to roll up her sleeve and run his cool fingers over the new scares that were etched deeply into her skin. "And I'm not just saying that, I actually mean it. The problem is, you don't know the real me. I can guarantee you'll never want anything to do with someone so terrible once you found out about who I really am." He sighed. "I like you, Imogen; I'm trying to protect you from myself."

"What are you talking about?" she sniffed. Eli shook his head and pressed his lips to Imogen's open wrist gingerly, sucking the blood up with his gums. "You aren't a vampire are you?" she asked him, beginning to get a bit frightened.

He mumbled against her skin, "no," Eli licked his lips and let her arm drop back down to her side. "I'm way worse."

Imogen's crying had let up by now, but her heart felt as though it were beating right out of her chest. She couldn't believe Eli actually felt the same way about her as she did about him. She was ecstatic on the inside, but she was also still in a lot of pain. "What do you mean?"

Eli sighed again and brushed the hair out of her face. "I hurt people… I _kill _people." He told her, unsure. He never thought he would someday be telling the girl he almost loved that he was actually murdering people she knew and went to school with. Eli had expected her to run off or do something to hurt him, but she just stood there, looking up at him with her tear-filled eyes glistening.

"I don't care," she breathed, and looked down at her watch. "Shit, I need to be home. Is it okay if I come over later?"

Now he really had no doubt that this girl was crazy. The first rational thing to do after your almost boyfriend tells you he's a psycho serial killer is to ask him if you can come over to his house after dinner. Ever think that's a good way to get your ass killed? "Um… yeah, I guess." He shrugged. "I'll rent a movie for us." As Imogen was about to turn around to leave, he touched her shoulder softly. "And everything is alright between us?"

"If you want it to be,"

xxx

Imogen knocked on Eli's front door, the distant sound of strained groans and glass breaking came from the inside. _What the fuck? _ She thought to herself as she tried looking though the peep-hole, but all she saw was very deformed shaped furniture and a fancy bust of some sort; that wasn't there the last time she came inside. She called his name from the porch over and over, for several minutes until she finally gripped the metal doorknob between her sweaty palms and twisted it, throwing the door open quietly as she quietly stepped inside the house. This wasn't considered break-and-enter, was it? Because the door was opened, and he already knew she was coming over tonight; of course that doesn't mean anything, him and Josette could be fooling around in the kitchen for all she knew.

She corned into the kitchen when she heard a female scream echo from down the hall. Her heart raced in her chest, and her immediate response was to grab a butcher knife and run to where the screams were coming from. The only things that ran through her mind right now was that Eli was out picking up that movie for them to watch and someone had broken into his house, now trying to hurt his mother.

When she crept into the den area slowly, she saw a familiar face being shoved up against the West wall, Eli's strong arms holding her down by her throat and repeatedly slamming he head down into the drywall. The girl was Clare Edwards from school; she always tried to keep her distance from Eli after he tried to ask her out a few times and she would turn him down each time. She was always such a bitch to him whenever he would try talking to her, calling him names and accusing him of touching her. But those could have just been silly high school rumours that were possibly started by her boyfriend, Jake Martin, who was a huge jackass to everyone in the school. "Eli?" Imogen asked him confusingly, slowly getting closer to the fighting pair. Clare was pretty strong for a tiny thing like her; she pretty much almost had Eli on his ass.

"Go away, Imogen!" he said with a groan. "I'm trying to take care of something."

"Do you need any help?" she raised the blade to her eyelevel and examined the sharp ridges on the end as it shined under the dimmed lighting of the den. Clare gasped for air when Eli's fist met with the base of her throat, knocking the wind out of her. And Imogen flinched, taking a step back when it finally hit her what in the hell he was doing. All this time she really thought he was just joking around when he was talking about 'killing people', but now she realized he was telling the truth. He was fucking insane…and so was she for falling for someone like him. "Let her go!" she told him, her hands shaking with the knife still between them. "Eli, I swear to God, please just let her go."

After a minute, Eli looked over his shoulder and locked eyes with Imogen. The knife was pointing towards him and she looked like she was two seconds away from lunging at him. He was preparing himself for the sharp, intense graze of the blade being thrust into his side; blood seeping into the carpet that had just recently been put in. His dad would kill him for staining the new carpeting if he already didn't die from such extreme blood loss.

His grip on Clare's throat loosened, and she fell to the ground trying to regain her breathing; she was a minute away from losing consciousness. Eli turned himself around to face Imogen who was staring down at Clare now, who was fighting to keep her eyes open as she coughed dryly, a drop of blood falling from the corner of her mouth.

Imogen lowered the knife slowly, and she reached out to grasp Clare's hand, helping her up. She would be in for a long ride if she were to officially get together with Eli. "Are you alright?" Imogen asked the quivering girl quietly, being sure not to look Eli anymore to make her go weak. It was something about his face that made her want to fall down on her knees and be his little slave. And that smirk of his sent her over the edge; she felt she would do anything for him to make him happy.

The two girls made their way over to the front door, Eli following behind them with his head down and his hands in his pockets. What the hell was Clare going to tell people? She would probably get Jake and the police on Eli's ass to try to take him down. After Imogen left, he needed to go back to her and blow Clare's pretty little face off before she could get to anyone. Imogen lifted Clare's face up to examine her mascara stained cheeks and gripped the handle of the knife and wiped away Clare's tears with the roll of her soft thumb. "It's okay," she whispered. "Eli won't hurt you as long as I'm holding you."

Imogen's eyes stared down into Clare's clear blue ones as she slowly captured the girl's lips between her own, kissing her softly. Clare bit down on Imogen's bottom lip, causing a low moan to roll out of her chest, their bodies pressed so close together that they could feel the other's body heat radiating off the their intertwined bodies. Eli watched them with wide eyes, and wondered why in the hell he didn't try this before. A girl that he was practically in love with, and a girl he had the hot's for since grade school making out a few inches from his face? Now that was his kind of heaven.

Imogen slipped her tongue into Clare's warm, inviting mouth and raised the knife once more. With her lips still lingering on Clare's, Imogen threw the knife forward, the blade slicing open Clare's stomach as she slowly fell to the ground. Blood seeped from the wound, and all Eli could do was stand there in shock, he was frozen. The small brunette girl smirked at Clare's struggles and twisted the knife around 90 degrees before she finally tore it out of her.

**;) so… what did you think of the ending? I have convinced myself that my mind is truly fucked up, so even begin to come up with something that that. And yes, she is dead… hmmm. At least Imo and Eli have something really huge in common, eh? By the way, if you notice the pattern in the chapter titles and realize what they relate to, you're so awesome! **


	6. centre of eternity

**I don't want to sound like an asshole here, but PLEASE READ THE A/Ns to this story! A lot of people have come to me on twitter, complaining about the content of this story. It's not entirely my fault if you read (or don't read) the warnings in the a/ns and continue on with the story anyway. Yes, there will be blood. Yes, there will be alcohol use. Yes, there will be sexual content. All of this was mentioned at the beginning of the first chapter.**

Eli threw the lit match into the fireplace that was in his dad's study, the crumpled up newspaper catching the flame immediately as it spread throughout the metal plate. The nights he couldn't sleep, he would come down here and attempt writing until he eventually fell asleep over the wooden desk that was placed in the middle of the room. Bullfrog would come into the room first thing in the morning, if he weren't hungover, to start reading up on the latest fires in the area.

Bullfrog always had the strangest obsession with combustion; conflagration. When he was a teenager, he would carry a blue lighter around and torch the most random things he came across. He's basically been called a Pyromaniac or Arsonist by everyone to come into his life.

Eli picked up another sheet of newspaper that was lying across the desk; this one was highlighted in several different paragraphs where there was an article about an abandoned house which caught on fire over the weekend. His eyes skimmed over it, and he shook his head before balling up the paper and tossing it into the fire, a large blue flame consuming it.

After everything that had happened just the other day between him and Imogen, he didn't know how to react. She's been trying to call him and showing up at his house a few times the last few days, but he didn't know what to say to her. After what she did to Clare, he just snapped; he cared so much for Imogen, and after all that work of him saving her from himself, something worse came from it. _She became him. _

xxx

"_What the fuck did you do?" Eli screamed as he lunged himself down to the floor, taking Clare up into his arms. His hands shook uncontrollably; his eyes filling with pained tears as he took a DNA bath in her blood, trying to get a pulse from her. But the wound was too deep, the blade had hit a main artery and she didn't have any chance at living at all anymore. _

_Why in the hell did he have to tell Imogen who is was, and what he did? Now that she's gotten a taste of his world; felt the adrenaline of a fresh kill coarse through her veins, there was no going back to the person she once was. She was utterly hopeless, and it was all Eli's fault. _

_Imogen tried to speak, but Eli ripped the knife out of her hand and continued to yell. "Do you realize what you've done?" he was crying now. He didn't care how pathetic he looked; he just wanted her out of his house. _He never wanted to see her again as long as they were both breathing on this fucked up earth. _"Go home." He told her almost inaudible. "Go home, and don't ever talk to me. I never want to see you again! I don't care if we were the last two people on this fucking planet, just fucking go!"_

_She hesitated; her eyes stinging with unwanted tears as she whipped herself around and slammed through the door, running a few houses down to get to her own home. Imogen was practically drowning in Clare Edwards' blood, and she was shaking; terrified. Why did she do that? Whatever that was, that wasn't her. Imogen wouldn't kill a fly, let alone a living, breathing person. What was wrong with her?_

xxx

Eli heaved a sigh and sat down in the leather desk chair, spinning around slowly while he closed his eyes and rested his head back. His hands lay folded in his lap, and he hummed gently to himself as he continued to spin around tiredly in circles. Despite what he may tell people, about how far along he's been getting in his writing projects, the truth was he hadn't written in several months. He felt like giving up after suffering from writer's block for such a long time – he didn't even feel like trying anymore since he could never find the right inspiration. His footing came to a stop, and he slowly began to drift off into a gentle sleep while the fire crackled no further than two feet away from him.

xxx

Imogen crawled into her bed and under the covers quickly as she shivered, goosebumps showering her arms and legs. Ever since that night at Eli's house, every little thing scared her – she even had to sleep with the light on incase she had nightmares. All she's been thinking about since then was what would happen if someone knew what she did; she trusted Eli not to say anything, but that didn't mean someone wouldn't figure it out for themselves. Imogen was a murderer, and that's not something anyone should be proud of.

She closed her eyes and let her loose hair fall down over her pale face. Three sleeping pills should be enough for her to finally get some sleep; she'd taken them from her mom's safe in her bedroom while she was out at the store. So far nothing had worked for her; an hour of sleep every night wasn't exactly very fun, especially while still going to school every morning feeling like shit. Just as she lay her head down on the pillow, a loud irritating siren whipped through the air, red and blue flashing lights speeding by her bedroom window and down the street. What the fuck?

With an irritated sigh, she swung her legs over the side of her bed; the hardwood floor beneath her feet was ice cold like it was in the middle of winter. Her mother must've turned the air conditioning up way too high again. As she tiredly made her way over to open up her thin pink curtains, two ambulances drove by her house – something was going on, and it looked pretty serious.

Imogen grabbed her glasses from her dresser top and slipped them on quickly to see what was with all the emergency vehicles down her street. Nothing unusual like break-ins or people getting murdered never particularly happened where she lived… _scratch that second one._ The moment she realized someone might have found Clare's body, her heart sank in her chest. They were going to know it was her; they're going to find traces of her fingerprints all over the knife that she used to kill her. She squinted through the window, into the darkness and noticed several of her neighbours were out on their front lawn being nosy shitheads to see what was going on. The police cars and such were at Eli's house too. Oh fuck, oh fuck.

She backed away slowly from the window, noticing there was a large fire coming from one of the upstairs room; there was black smoke surrounding the whole house and several people in heavy yellow jackets were trying to put it out. The only thing that she could think of at the moment was Eli had been bumped off by Clare's boyfriend after he heard what they did to her and Imogen was going to be next.

Not wasting any time, she ran out of her purple themed room and tore out the front door to have a large gust of cool summer wind hit her face. It would figure that those sleeping pills were just starting to kick in while she would probably be out late tonight to find out what was really going on. She shivered, rubbing her bare arms up at down while she quickly ran across the street and started heading toward Eli's house. From the short distance, she could see his parents sitting in the back of one of the fire trucks; they were wrapped up together in a long blanket and Bullfrog had his arm slung around CeCe's shoulder who was balling into his chest. But where was Eli?

Imogen ran into the Goldsworthy's yard and looked around for him, noticing that everyone there except for his parents were so calm. And why was that? A fucking house was burning to the ground for Christ's sakes, and one of the people who resided in that house was nowhere to be found.

It was a Tuesday night, a little after midnight; she knew Eli, she knew that he would never step out of the house on a Tuesday. He had told her before that this was the night he stayed in to re-read his favourite novels and work on his own. It was the only night of the week he would force himself to stay home unless he had to work, but the cremation house wasn't open this late anyway.

"Where's Eli?" Imogen screamed out in a panic, not realizing she had tears of worry streaming down her face; she had a pretty good feeling that this night wasn't going to end well for anyone, there was something wrong here. She glanced up at the roaring fire, the dancing demons swirling around vigorously in the night sky, another one of the windows looking like it was about to blow out from the heat and pressure the fire was setting off. Imogen could feel the warmth of the house fire tingling off of her chilled skin from where she was standing, and the fire was so strong that her eyes burned as if she were in the house herself. "What the fuck? Don't just stand there!" she yelled at one of the firefighters who was watching two of the others struggle with untangling the hose – these were some really terrible firefighters. "Someone else is in there; you have to get him out!"

She attempted running toward the front door; the exact door she had run from just a few days ago was now beginning to go up in flames. The fireman stopped her, wrapping his arms from behind and pulling her away from the burning house as she struggled to get away from him. "Ma'am, you have to calm down. There's nothing we can do, I'm sorry."

"Bullshit!" she cried. "You're a fucking firefighter; it's your goddamn job to help people!"

"The fire spread too quickly!" he told her over the loud cackling of the fire. "It's too dangerous for _anyone _to go back in there right now. Whoever is in there would be a lucky son of a bitch to survive this, but it's not at all likely. We tried all we could."

Just as the firefighter got his last sentence out, Imogen was being dragged away from the house again; the windows shattering out and large shards of glass landing down on her half-dressed body. The man covered Imogen's head and shielded her face with his body at the same moment he lead her quickly down to the street.

When he let her go, she turned herself around, her long hair swaying from one side to the other. "No, Eli!" she sobbed. The house was entirely up in flames now, cold water finally being sprayed completely over the old small house before it could possibly get any worse – the house was ruined, gone, it was entirely unlivable. Everything inside was destroyed, along with anyone who would have been trapped in the house; the only person that made her feel like she actually mattered was gone.

She stared at the burning house through blurry tears; she fell to her knees weakly and wished she would have been in there with him. Imogen knew for a fact that it was all her fault for what had happened to Eli; he was mad at her, he would do nothing but ignore her after the incident with Clare. And just when she finally told him how she truly felt about him, he had to go and die on her. How fucked up was that?

And how could he be so selfish to leave her here, alone? She could barely function while she was on her own – like Bianca and Adam would even help her out or bother to take two seconds out of their day to ask her if she was okay. She hardly saw the two of them after they had started seeing each other.

Quickly, Imogen picked up one of the shards from the ground that had blown out of one of the downstairs windows. The sharp glass dug deeply into her frail hand, blood trailing from the fresh cut and leaving a thick trail down her shaking pale arm. She stood up slowly, examining herself in the reflection of the shard while the house continued to burn in the background. Mascara stained her cheeks, and her red lipstick had been smeared across her chin; the red and black swollen bags under her eyes added to her less efficient than usual look.

Imogen took off down the street, her legs pushing harder and harder as her bare feet slapped against the cool pavement of the road, her arms flailing back and forth at either of her sides, the piece of glass still pressing into her throbbing hand. She was sobbing uncontrollably now; her glasses had steamed up and she was crying so hard that her chest felt like it was on fire, burning ferociously behind her ribcage. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought this was a panic attack.

She fell to the ground, landing back on her hands. The shard slipped up into her wrist, causing blood to spill out of her wound. She clutched her chest, her heart beating ten times faster than normal rate; and she ignored the blood that was now dripping down the front of her new pajamas. _The worst that could happen to her now was surviving this extremely eventful night. _

**Since I'm a total weirdo, I made these character twitter accounts for the story.**

**Those accounts would be: (at) _goldsworthy15 (at)_ _imogen_rosex (at) josetteohare_**

**Basically these were made so you can get hints for what will be going on in upcoming chapters. :)**


	7. no more tears

**Hello again, my patient readers! Sorry it took so long to update, but everything seemed to go wrong with this chapter. It deleted twice (which is funny because I was just talking about how Word never deletes my documents), and I writer's block kept getting in the way. But here it is, better late than never… chapter 7. Woo! **

"_God, I know you gave your precious Son, to give us life with you. But we didn't want our son to leave, because he was precious too. We all are special in your eyes, and all to you return. We know our son will not come back, and for this our hearts still yearn," _the preacher dressed in a white robe swiping the floor read; he stood at the altar. Unknown faces showered the inside of the air conditioned church, sounds of quiet sobs echoing throughout the building while he continued to read the scripture. "_Our time on earth is for learning, and when our lessons are through, our Lord will choose the time we leave. And we come back to you." _

This isn't right; none of it. Eli wouldn't want this – he wouldn't want groups of people he's barely glanced at once crying over his absence. He wouldn't want anyone making such a big deal out of a boy who meant nothing to the world, who thought it would be a better place without him. He would honestly rather be thrown into a ditch in a trash bag than a ceremony that went all out.

Death happens every day, to everyone around us. Why didn't people realize "letting a loved one go" by a funeral only made them feel more like shit? A day full of shed tears, and depressing hours leading up to the moment of grieving and pain was too much. Why spend so much precious time saying goodbye to someone who was already gone?

"_Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, _always _perseveres."_

Imogen blacked out everything the priest was saying. Her attention had been averted to the large blown-up picture of Eli that was sitting on top of the casket – it was a picture she had taken. CeCe would whine about not ever getting him to smile in a picture, but Eli couldn't help but smile whenever he was around Imogen.

Tears stung her eyes, and Josette nudged her side softly. She jumped. "You killed him and you can't even do us all the favour of _paying attention _at his funeral?" Josette hissed in her ear. "You're repulsive; I hope you're happy that you've hurt so many people."

"I didn't do anything to him!" Imogen whispered back as she played with a loose string that hung off the thumb of her black glove. Josette had gotten on her nerves since the second she saw her smug little face at the park that day. Why couldn't it have been her who was blown to pieces in a house fire instead of Eli?

"You're not fooling anyone, Miss. Priss. I can't wait for the day until I'm sitting at _your _funeral. You need to burn in hell for what you did."

"You're a bitch!" Imogen yelled, arising from the wooded pew beneath her. The attention of everyone in the church was averted to her now, some of them sobbing harder due to her uproar. She looked around at all of the people staring at her and shook her head. "This is bullshit," she said shakily, shoving her way out of the row of crowded people and into the hall, slamming through the back entrance of the church.

_And she ran. _

She ran and ran, her black dress trailing against the asphalt of the road until she couldn't run anymore. It was entirely too hot of a day for her to be running in all black under the summer's heat.

Imogen collapsed at the side of the road, her head being met with a patch of a mixture of fresh flowers that had grown directly under a shade tree somewhere out of the way.

The soothing and calming scent of purple lilacs tingled at her nose as she fluttered her eyes open gently. Standing over her was a distorted figure dressed in black; at first she thought it was someone chasing after her from the funeral to see if she was okay. But then again, what guy, in this hot weather would come running after a girl he didn't know to find out what was going on? Unless he was a little fuck who only wanted to use her time of despair to dive into her pool. "Immy," the voice said quietly.

She faintly squinted through the bright sun to try to make out the face – he looked a lot like Eli, but that wasn't possible. She was there that night when his house went up in flames, and she escaped the funeral just now; it had to be a hallucination from the heat. The figure bent down to run his cool hand down the side of her dress, placing a ginger kiss against her cheek. "Imogen, you need to wake up," Eli spoke. He looked at peace; free. His dark clothing had suddenly turned to a white pantsuit with an off-coloured necktie hanging loosely from the collar. "You're dreaming, wake up. Wake up."

xxx

"Wake up! Wake up, dammit!" Bianca yelled, frustrated, shaking Imogen on the couch. "Don't be shitting with me, Moreno, open your eyes _right now_." She shook her again, harder this time. She was anxious; she always hated being awake alone in Imogen's creepy house. "You bitch, don't make me steal your comic books."

Imogen gasped, her eyes springing open. "Eli?" she questioned. "Where's Eli?"

"He's…" Bianca sighed and moved over on the couch for Imogen to sit up next to her. "They haven't found him. They think…" she looked down at her hands sadly. "He didn't make it out."

"No," Imogen shook her head. "But it was just a dream…"

"It wasn't. I'm so sorry, Imo," she apologized.

Imogen frowned and stood up from the couch weakly, heading toward the stairs with Bianca following close after her. Bianca knew what it was like after losing someone; it was like your body couldn't function properly knowing that you'll never see that certain person alive again. It hurt to know they were gone for good and you'd never be able to say goodbye. It wasn't just like they went off to camp, death was real – death was the most depressing thing someone would have to go through.

Imogen slowly plopped down on her bed, her bare feet touching the hardwood floor as she gazed into space, lost in her own thought. The last thing she remembered was passing out on the side of the road from so much blood loss, being awakened by Bianca shaking the living shit out of her while she was asleep.

Bianca lived a street over and she noticed the fire from her living room window when she was about to go to bed. Being the nosey person she was, Bianca decided to take a walk up there to find out what was going on. She's never talked to Eli more than twice; she figured he was some devil worshiping freak who could probably get her wrapped in some kind of dark magic to curse her for the rest of her life – not that she believed in that kind of nonsense. Imogen would talk about him the very few times the two of them have seen each other in the last few months – it was obvious that Imogen had it bad for Eli. When Bianca had realized what happened, her heart sank. She felt absolutely terrible for her best friend. Even though she didn't know Eli very well, it hurt her almost as much as it did Imogen, but anyone with a heart would feel that way. And as much as Bianca wanted to deny it, she did indeed have a heart that cared for people.

Bianca sat down on the bed beside Imogen and pressed a damp washcloth to the middle of Imogen's wrist where the glass had cut her up pretty badly. Bianca already bandaged up her hand where the cut wasn't too deep. Those first aid courses she was forced to take over the summer really weren't all that bad when she figured how useful they were now. She had to remember to thank her parents for that later.

"I'll go run a bath, okay?" the older brunette spoke, a sorrowful smile coming across her face. She tucked a section of Imogen's matted hair behind her ear and she shuttered under Bianca's touch.

Imogen was in shock; she was terrified. She couldn't help but remember all of the good moments she and Eli had together before everything that had happened on this dreadful evening – she wished she were dead. Imogen didn't want to live in a place where everything had to get worse for her. And since that seemed to follow her wherever she went, she figured death was the only escape from all the hurt, pain, feelings of worthlessness she had. At least she could be with her dad and Eli that way.

Bianca stood from the surprisingly soft, new feather mattress that lie on top of the bed as she left the room to start a warm bath for Imogen to get cleaned up.

Imogen ran her feeble fingers over the piece of thick gauze Bianca tied securely around her friend's hand. The roughness of the fabric tingled against Imogen's skin, and tears burned her eyes much more. She felt as though she reacted way too quickly to the trauma with Eli. She obviously would have no idea if Eli was hurt or not, but like the fireman said it would be almost impossible; almost like a miracle.

Imogen angrily tore at the gauze, ripping the tape from the fluff like she was fighting to win a thousand dollars on an award show.

Why did she have to hurt Clare? She knew that was the reason why Eli wasn't here; she could have prevented it and spared two lives – it was entirely all of her fault! If she never would have fucked up by stabbing the girl, Eli wouldn't have gotten mad and the future would have been tampered with. He could be alive and well right now. She didn't believe in bullshitted karma until now.

She continued tugging and pulling at the gauze, throwing off a few pieces here and there. "Fuck!" she shouted, her fingernails slipping and losing its grasp on the medical tape. Where did Bianca find all this shit anyway?

"Watch your language, Ms. Moreno," a rough voice spoke from her bedroom doorway; it wasn't Bianca, and it obviously wasn't her mom who didn't give two shits about what her daughter was doing awake so late on a school night. But she'd recognize that sarcastic laced voice anywhere.

Imogen looked up at the shady figure almost immediately, her eyes glimmering with pure happiness and surprise as she jumped up and ran over to him. She threw herself into his strong arms and inhaled the delicious smell of his wood scented body spray. _She wasn't hallucinating, nor dreaming this time._ The strong woodsy scent burned her nostrils annoyingly, but she didn't mind at the moment. All that mattered was she was here with her favourite guy and that he was safe in her arms. Imogen never wanted to let him go, but Eli cleared his throat awkwardly and gently pulled her away from him. "I'm so glad you're okay," she almost cried joyfully. "You have no idea how worried I was." She buried her face into his chest again and snaked her arms around his stiff waist tightly.

Eli chuckled and pushed her softly away once more. When he got back to his house, he noticed what was going on and blamed it all on himself. He should have never left the house while the fire was still going. He would be getting a beaten from Bullfrog for that one, no doubt. According to CeCe, he'd come back home just a moment after Imogen had left, crying.

Eli cupped Imogen's muddy face between his palms and rolled his thumbs over her soft cheeks, wiping away her tears. "Where were you?" Imogen asked in barely a whisper, her big brown, tear-filled eyes looking up at him. She was so relieved he was alright and that she could see him; hear his voice at least once more in this fucked up life of hers.

"I went for a walk to clear my head," he smiled lightly down at the girl. "I needed to think some things over; try to get inspiration for my writer's block. But I was too blind to see my inspiration is right here, in front of my eyes." Imogen smiled widely, Eli's words truly meaning the world to her right now. It was nice to finally feel like she mattered to someone. "I'm sorry I yelled."

"That's alright," Imogen replied, Eli's hands still touching her pale face.

"I also had time to think about us. And honestly, I'm getting sick of trying to decide what I want and what I don't want." Without any hesitation, Eli quickly leaned his face down to capture Imogen's lips with his own.

Imogen was taken aback, but she didn't object to his request. This is what she'd been waiting for, for so long. She kissed him back, her fingers finding their way up to tangle themselves in Eli's thick dark hair.

Eli's hands gripped her waist now, pulling her closer to his chest; his tongue ached to explore every inch of the inside of Imogen's warm, inviting mouth. _Finally._

**So… I was kind of skeptical of where to end the chapter, but I could come up with anything more so I figured I would leave it here. :') If you honestly thought I would kill the main protagonist off, there's something not right with you. And of course that was a joke. Until next time… don't forget to drink your Ovaltine. **


	8. tattooed dancer

**Hello! So I really need to remember to proof my a/n's before updating. I make myself sound like an idiot since I fly through it. After this chapter, there will be about… 6 or 7 left so we're a little over half-way through. And in the very last a/n in the last chapter, I'll have an announcement for my readers; just a heads up. :)**

Imogen walked out of the washroom tiredly, a towel whipping through her long, damp hair after taking an early shower. It was her first day back to school after the whole incident with the fire a week ago, and she honestly wasn't in the mood to go back. Though, she was shocked once she trudged into school on Monday and had the councilor give her a week off. Apparently, he had thought Imogen was "going through something" once he saw her wrist all bandaged up. Even though that was partially true, she still didn't think that was something to be sent home over.

She yawned widely and dropped the towel to her damp feet, shrieking as she did so. There was Eli, leaning back on her bed with a smug look on his face. And there she stood in only her pink hipster underwear and black faded bra. "What are you doing here?" she questioned loudly, her arms flying up to cover her chest; she shifted awkwardly waiting for a reply.

"I'm staying here for a few weeks, remember?" he smirked.

She nodded quickly, her mouth gaping open like she was an emotionless Kristen Stewart. "I mean, what are you doing here, in my bed, while I'm half-naked? Shouldn't you be eating breakfast?"

"Not hungry." Eli sat up in bed and brushed his cold fingers over an old scar on Imogen's stomach. "What's the story behind this?" the story was, she took a fireplace poker to the stomach when she and her ex got into one of their arguments. He, again, thought she was cheating on him all because she was a little more than five minutes late for dinner he had planned for her. That was the night he was going to tell her he loved her; give her a pre-engagement ring and hope they could be together for much longer. But that was the night they ever saw each other. Imogen was sent to the hospital for the ninth time because of him and he fled the country with his family. She just hoped Bobby Breckenridge could get better from what he did to her, that he didn't do to other girls what he did to Imogen.

"Fell down the stairs," she smiled weakly and dropped her hands, reaching for a shirt she had put out on the bed this morning before her shower.

Eli frowned, "I've used that one before. It usually only works on back eyes, and broken legs. I don't see either of those, so… what really happened?"

She pulled the shirt on over her head with a gentle sigh. "My ex wasn't very nice, that's all."

"Who was he?" he growled.

Automatically Imogen knew what Eli was planning to do – he's told her all about when he did with Owen, and he disturbed thoughts he'd been having. The night of the fire, they sat up to talk all night about anything they could think of. When Imogen asked Eli what made him want to hurt people, he told her all about how it started with his bullies. And ever since Imogen had some into his life, his terrible thoughts were slowly fading away. But it would take a lot to scare Imogen off, or she was just as crazy as Eli was for sticking with him for so long already.

"Some guy I dated a year ago. I don't even know where he is now; he moved." She slowly sat down in his lap and flipped her hair over her shoulder, wrapping her hands freely around the back of his neck.

"I swear I'll kill him!" he told her through his teeth. "No one hurts my girl like that and gets away with it."

Most girls would find a protective boyfriend extremely attractive, but when your boyfriend had a hobby of slaughtering people brutally, it was different – it scared you a bit.

She pecked his cheek. "I appreciate it, Eli, but it's in the past. And you're supposed to be getting better, remember?"

"So you're going to tell me, you don't look at that scar and think of all the terrible things he did to you? At all?"

She smiled sadly. "I honestly haven't thought about it much since I met you." Eli looked away from her. And for the past week he was at Imogen's house, he hadn't thought about hurting someone until this moment. She was changing him, and it scared Eli. He'd gotten so used to being the bad guy that he forgot what it was like to be normal – if he ever actually got that chance. "Right," he patted her thigh and rested his hand there for a moment. "We should finish getting ready before we're late." He kissed her nose lightly and arose from the bed, supporting Imogen up in his arms bridal style before placing her down on the balls of her feet.

Eli liked it at Imogen's house; it was peaceful, safe. Mrs. Moreno was pretty quiet a majority of the time, and he didn't have to deal with is parents' bullshit for a while until they found a new place.

He reluctantly touched Imogen's cheek with the tips of his fingers. "Thank you for being here."

Imogen placed her fingers on top of Elis, taking a step closer toward him. "You're welcome," her eyes caught his, her voice in barely a whisper.

"No, I mean it," he licked his lips. "Ever since the summer, it's like you've been my safe place."

She gave him a tooth grin. "Like a sanctuary." Her head slowly rose to touch her forehead against Eli's, she paused, blinking.

They stared into each other's eyes deeply. Eli's heart was pounding against his ribcage, his lips throbbing with desperation. And his eyes flicked down to hold a stare on Imogen's pink, plump lips, a slight smile tugging at the corners of them. Imogen let out a warm breath, Eli taking in the scent of fresh peppermint toothpaste that tingled his nostrils. The room spiraled around them as both of their minds went blank.

Eli's nose brushed against hers, he bet his head down to slowly feather a kiss at the corner of her mouth. Then he turned his face up, their lips intertwining with each other's softly. They fit together perfectly, like they were born as the missing puzzle pieces for one another.

The kiss was brief, but in that moment, that was when Eli fell in love with a girl named Imogen Moreno.

Eli pulled back to examine Imogen's face, his hands cupping her face gently as his eyes sparkled. Her chest was heaving with every breath, something warm filling up in her brown eyes. She felt happy; when their lips touched, she could feel a jolt of electricity shoot through her body; she's never experienced anything like it, and there were no words to describe how amazing it was. She considered this to be their first, true kiss. Not forced like the other night, it was real. "I should, um…" Imogen moved away and looked down at her feet. "I should put some pants on."

"Of course," Eli laughed nervously, his fingernails grazing the back of his neck as he shifted his weight from his left leg to his right.

Imogen chewed on her lip softly, reaching for a pair of purple skinny jeans that sat on the end of her bed. "No uniform today?" Eli questioned her.

"Nope. You're wearing my last clean pair so I'll take a detention."

"Are you sure? You can wear this." he fanned himself with the red polo that was tight against his chest. "I could pick up a new blazer for myself on the way there." Because of the fire, he lost every change of clothes he had, so Imogen was allowing him to borrow hers until his new shipment came in.

"It's only detention, I'll be fine." She smiled at him.

xxx

Imogen heaved a heavy sigh as she tapped the end of her pen against her notebook. The sound vibrated off the paper and caught Mr. Perino's attention immediately. "Ms. Moreno, perhaps you would feel more comfortable as a drummer in music class. Finish your test please."

She rolled her eyes at the teacher and dropped her pen to the desk. Everything Perino taught was dumb anyway; if she wanted to learn about the War of 1812, she would time travel back to that time of era.

Her phone buzzed in her jean pocket, making her jump in her seat. Thank God she remembered to turn the volume off on the drive over here, or she would have had double detention tomorrow after school.

She pulled out her iPhone to read a text from Eli.

_Had fun kissing you this morning. Up for another round tonight? Say, after school with strawberries and a jar of Nutella? ;)_

Imogen licked her lips and thought of what to text him back with. She didn't want to sound too clingy, but then again, she didn't want to make him think she suddenly lost all interest in him. She hid her phone under the desk and let her fingers fly over the touch screen keys.

_Why Eli, are you asking me out on a date?_

No longer after she locked her phone, it buzzed again, receiving another message from Eli.

_Would you like it to be?_

Imogen smiled at her phone, her train of thought being interrupted when she heard Perino clear his throat at the side of her desk. She was too wrapped up in texting Eli that she didn't realize the bell had already rung moments ago and the entire classroom had cleared out. Wait until Perino found out she was only half through that History test, missing a majority of the questions she'd answered. Now she understood why teachers didn't want their students texting in class; distracting. She was fucked.

xxx

Eli walked down the hallway slowly, looking around for Imogen as he passed by all of the students who were walking by to leave for the day. She was supposed to meet him at his locker after last period but she never showed up. She wasn't answering any of her texts either which was beginning to worry him. She always had her phone on her and replied back extremely fast.

He found himself bumping into a girl in front of him, knocking her books out of her hands and falling to the floor with a loud thump. "Crap, I'm sorry," he apologized as he looked up to see who the girl was. He sighed annoyingly when he recognized the girl. "Josette, what are you doing at my school?" it's not that he didn't like Josette; they were really good friends. It was the fact that she made Imogen upset to see her with him. And that was no one's fault but his own.

He knelt down to pick up the books he knocked out of her hands, and collected any loose papers. "I enrolled here with my sister," she told him. "I had no idea you went to Degrassi!" but that was a lie. She purposely did some digging to find out just about everything about him that she didn't know already. Phone numbers, where his summer job was, the school he went to, that he was staying at Imogen's house while his parents looked around for a new house. She even followed him through the woods that night he went for his walk; she was the one who threw in the lighter fluid to spread the fire after he'd fallen asleep briefly. But of course, no one would ever get ahold of that piece of information.

Eli stood to his feet, handing over Josette's books when he noticed her class schedule. "You're taking French?" he laughed.

"It is an easy A," she said with a shrug.

He looked around the empty hallway to see Imogen approaching the two of them in the hall. "Um, I have to go," his eyes met with Imogen's as she smiled at him. "This was nice, though, I'll see you around." He quickly moved around Josette to catch up with Imogen. He wanted to make sure she was okay and what was going on to make her late. He should have expected it was Perino being a douche as always. He'd taken her phone for the week and gave her detention during lunch tomorrow; he also sat there while she finished taking her History test two inches away from them. As if him sitting in the front of the classroom was nerve racking enough, but he was watching over her shoulder as she wrote.

"Hey," Eli pecked Imogen's lips and took her hand in his. Her hand was cold, like she'd been out picking up heaps of snow in the winter without any gloves on. "You're freezing." He narrowed his eyes and looked down at her as they began walking down the hall together.

"Get to know me, Goldsworthy, I have bad circulation in my hands and feet."

"At least your lips are nice and warm," He smirked and kissed her again quickly.

xxx

Loud music blasted through the speakers of the surround sound that sat in Imogen's living room. Eli sat on the couch with a blanket wrapped around him while the book _Fight Club _was firmly in his hand. He'd read the book several times already, but he couldn't get enough of Palahniuk's incredibly twisted mind. He gave him inspiration for his own writing – if he could only shake that bad writer's block he's had for so long.

Imogen danced in front of him in only the bra and underwear she changed into this morning. It was her first time tasting Nutella and she'd already eaten half of the jar with a spoon. She wiggled and wobbled from side to side as she put the jar down on the coffee table and licked the spoon clean, making her way over to Eli as she sang and danced. _"We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue, and then we'll take it higher," _she screamed out in song. "Eli, dance with me!" she laughed, slipping the book from between his hands. "This is my jam, come on!" she dog tagged the page of the book and grabbed Eli's hands, forcefully pulling him up to his feet. The first time they really hung out, he made her dance around with him to his old records so it was only fair for her to make him dance with her now.

She continued to sing the song, jumping around like a hyperactive chipmunk. "Okay," Eli laughed. "Last time I'm giving you spliff."

"No way! I feel_ great_!" she yelled over the music, dancing her way over to the stereo to turn up the music louder.

"Though, I have to admit I enjoy seeing you shake your ass in your underwear," He said just as the song changed.

"_Rollercoaster of love. Rollercoaster. Oh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Rollercoaster of love!" _Imogen screamed out, handing Eli a bottle of Vodka. "_Your love is like a Rollercoaster, baby, baby_."

Eli shook his head at the girl, the most idiotic grin forming on his face. He would much rather lie down and read his book in silence, but at least he could spend some time with his girlfriend. Besides, he hasn't been in the party vibe for a while now; since his body was full of weed and alcohol, he might as well use it up on something a little more upbeat than reading about a guy with insomnia.

He unbuttoned the red polo shirt and untucked it from the khaki pants, finally joining in on the party. But there was no way he was stripping down to his unmentionables like Imogen had. "Let me find a good song first." he walked over to Imogen's iPhone that was connected to the stereo to scroll through the songs she had in her playlists. Most of them were older '80 songs, and the others had a more recent playlist. He loved his '80s and '90s music, but there was a newer song that stood out to him, which he couldn't pass up. He selected the song and turned up the volume a tad more, looking over at Imogen with a devious grin on his face.

"What did you do?" she asked him, a little frightened by what his answer would be.

"_When I walk on by, girls be looking like damn he fly," _Eli began, dancing his way over to Imogen and smoothly grabbing her by the waist. "_I pay to the beat, walking on the street with in my new lafreak, yeah."_

She laughed, dancing around with him to the beat of the song as he continued to sing to her. The two of them never realized how conceited this band was until they just now danced around to it and actually paid attention to the lyrics. But then again, it was easily made as Eli's theme song, so there were no complaints whatsoever.

"_Girl, look at that body," _Eli pulled away from her and tore off his shirt, grabbing Imogen's hand again and spinning her around; he let the music control him and drown out all of his worries and fears. He pointed to his bicep, _"I work out!"_

**Yay! That was chapter eight. And now I'm craving juicy strawberries dipped in the chocolaty goodness of Nutella. Oh would you look at that, I have some right now in my refrigerator. I shall leave you now to review (hint, hint) while I go stuff my face. The next chapter will be less-happy, involving something from the past to come back. (no, I'm not talking about Bobby.) **


	9. goodbye to romance

**Hi! This one is a little bit longer because my brain didn't want to stop writing. (what brain?) even though writer's block got a hold of me yet again, I still attempted working around it. As you can see, the chapter gets less descriptive as you read because of that reason. =P I do apologize.**

Eli walked along the side of the road. The sun was just setting over the trees that covered the park, and it began to grow darker as the minutes ticked by. He'd just gotten finished thinking things over a cup of coffee at the Dot up until closing time.

CeCe and Bullfrog called him about an hour ago to tell him they'd found an apartment up in Vancouver. That would mean moving miles away and leaving everything behind him. They were asking him to sacrifice his neighbourhood, school, and his girlfriend. Basically, they wanted him to leave his life behind once he'd finally got it back on track. Eli was on a good path right now; he didn't want his parents changing things for him, even if they gave him that choice or not.

Eli drug his feet down a wooded path in the park now. As he passed by the trees and wildflowers, he let his mind wander on continuously. If he went with his parents, he would lose everything he had in Toronto. If he stayed here, he didn't know how he would manage to get by. That would most likely consist of taking his summer job on full time, while going to school the same days. Staying up for a week straight, and only sleeping on weekends for the rest of his life shouldn't be too hard, right? There wasn't any other way he could get money to afford first and last upfront in a few days if he planned on staying. And Imogen's mother wouldn't appreciate him staying at their house any longer.

He felt someone's arms being wrapped around him from behind. He wasn't in the mood to put up with anyone right now. "Hey, Eli," Josette purred before she spun him around and kissed his cheek softly. Her lipgloss smelled like fresh watermelon; she knew watermelon lipgloss was his weakness. "Thinking about something?" she twirled her slim fingers between her dark curls, pursing her lips seductively.

He sighed and looked away from her blazing eyes, staring into the sky that swirled in shades of red, orange, and yellow. "My parents are making me move to Vancouver."

"What?" she gasped dramatically. "That's like…" she counted the numbers up in her head. She was never very great at distances in math. "Seven-thousand kilos away!"

"More like just above nine-thousand, four-hundred."

"Merde," she mumbled under her breath. "When do you leave?"

"They gave me a choice. I can stay here and come up with the money; live on my own. Or move there, with them and not have to worry about buying a place. They want me to decide tonight."

Josette huffed and began pacing back and forth. She would admit that she could overreact at times. "No. No, no, you cannot just leave," she told him. "I just got to see you again after over a year and you are leaving me? Why? I didn't destroy your house of living for nothing! I cannot –

"—you did what?" he interrupted, his jaded eyes widening. That's when he realized Imogen was right about Josette; about everything she's said and done since she's moved here. She was a manipulative bitch who needed to stop following him around. Who the hell started a house fire to make it blow up? Only to catch someone's attention? That was complete and utter bullshit.

He scoffed and pushed her to the side, storming back down the way he came with Josette following behind him. He needed to talk to Imogen about his decision. "Stop following me, Josette, I mean it. What you did was out of line; you ruined everything. And I don't think I can ever forgive you for that," he was speaking in barely a whisper, his back still facing toward her, walking away with her still following him down the trial. What did he have to say to shake this girl off of him?

"I'm sorry! I just wanted you to notice me," she frowned. She was right on Eli's heels now; she wasn't giving up on him. "You're supposed to be with me, not some pigtailed, glasses wearing freak!" she shouted. "Are you so blind to not see how ugly she is?"

Eli whipped himself around, Josette crashing into his chest, hard; he grabbed her shoulders tightly. His short, jagged nails dug into her bare arms, blood already rising to the surface of her soft skin. "Listen to me you fucking _bitch,_" he spat, leading her back slowly until her back thumped against one of the many trees that flow behind her. "I don't know who you think you are, but you _never _talk about my girlfriend that way!"

Her bottom lip quivered, and she looked over his pained face carefully. He was so mad that he might as well be foaming at the mouth.

Eli was so tired of everyone's bullshit lately – it was like the world was ganging up on him. If one more person tried to mess with him, or someone he loved, he would lose it completely. "But I love you," she whispered shakily; her eyes stung with tears. Eli was the main reason she moved here with her family. She'd much rather be relaxing in her condo in Montreal right now instead of sleeping I some shithole every night.

Eli shook his head. "Well I've never loved you," he growled. "Go back to your fancyass house, back to your oh-so-beautiful _boudoir_!" he was yelling loud now. But he was truly pissed off at how this girl was acting. "You can take your holier-than-thou attitude, and jam it up your ass!" he laughed sarcastically; almost sadistically. "Leave me the fuck alone from now on. Don't you understand that you're a manipulative little cunt?" he threw her shaking body back into the tree forcefully, so hard that leaves fell off of the branches and showered over her; they stuck in her hair. "Stay away from me and Imogen from now on. I never want to see your smug little face again." He turned away quickly, his dark bangs showering over his eyes from the wind that started to pick up.

"I don't want to be with a dick like you anyway!" she cried, her tears now streaming down her beat red cheeks. "Va te faire foutre!" she choked out through her sobs.

Eli stopped in his tracks, his hands balling up into tight fists at his sides while he tried to calm himself down. He needed to breathe through this; he had to walk away. _Just ignore her. _He told himself over and over to himself.

"Go run back to your perfect little whore girlfriend!" why couldn't this girl shut the hell up? She was only getting herself in more trouble than she was already in.

Eli turned around again and charged over to the girl. He threw a punch to the side of her cheek. He could feel her jaw crack beneath his fist as she screamed out in excruciating pain. Eli's never broken his jaw before, but he can only imagine how painful it could be. Didn't they have to fed you through a tube that went up your nose, and down into your stomach? Or something similar in that way?

He slammed his hand down on the trunk of the tree, his face an inch away from hers. "Stay out of my business before I rip your fucking head off! I'm not telling you again!"

xxx

Eli stepped through the doorway, his hair soaking wet from the walk back to Imogen's place. It'd just started to rain when he was a little over half-way back, and he'd almost gotten struck by lightning a few times.

Imogen was sitting Indian style at the end of her bed; her pink Vaio laptop sat in her lap while her fingers flew over the keys so quickly that it was almost inhuman. She was finishing up a last minute essay for History class that she forgot to do. She was really beginning to get on Perino's nerves this semester. But as much as she loved messing with her teachers' heads, she needed to pass this class if she didn't want to take it over again next term. Also, if she really wanted to get into a prestigious University in two years, she needed to start being serious with her work. She wasn't in ninth or tenth grade anymore where she could bluff her way through the entire year. Imogen never really studied as a freshman, and she luckily passed with an overall D-.

Eli sat down beside her on the bed and held his head in his hands shamefully. What the fuck was wrong with him? He just basically murdered his friend because he let his anger control his body again. Eli didn't want this – what he really wanted was to continue to get better; he's been working so hard. He had to ruin all of that hard work on one night. Was he really crazy; out of his mind like he'd been beginning to think?

"What's going on?" Imogen asked him after a long while. It took her a bit to realize Eli was upset about something because she was so concentrated in her homework.

Eli wiped the tears from his eyes and sat up straight, looking over at his worried girlfriend. "I did something bad, Imogen." She grabbed his shaking hands and held onto them tightly between her own. He refused to look directly into her eyes. He was scared, and he knew she would be upset with him once he told her what had happened tonight. "It's okay," she told him gently. "Whatever it is, we'll get through it together."

"I hurt Josette," he blurted out, finally letting his eyes connect with Imogen's. She looked a little shocked, and her face fell disappointingly as she swallowed the lump in her throat. She nodded slowly, allowing him to continue.

She prayed to God Josette was okay; even though she hated the French bitch to no end, she was supposed to be helping Eli through all of this, not supporting him murdering Josette O'Hare.

"She wouldn't stop…" he inhaled a sharp breath. "She was talking shit about you and I just lost all control over myself. It was like I was a totally different person." That's exactly how Imogen felt after she'd realized what she'd done to Clare Edwards. Speaking of Clare, did Eli ever dispose of the body?

"Did you… did you, um…" she cleared her throat nervously, preparing herself for the worst.

"No," he whispered. "No, she's fine."

Imogen sighed in relief before hesitantly wrapping her arms around Eli's drenched body comfortingly. "You stopped yourself, that's all that matters."

"But I didn't want to stop, Imogen!" he aggressively threw her arms off of him and jumped up to his feet. He was frustrated; he didn't know who he was anymore – he didn't like the person he'd become. Eli let out a long and surprisingly steady breath as he started to pace the room. His mind brought up the subject of going away again to start anew. He tried to calm himself down, looking up at Imogen who seemed terrified by his actions. And she had every reason to be scared of him. Eli Goldsworthy was a killer, a psychopath – he murdered people he hated; people who said one or two mean sentences to him. He'd give anything, literally anything, to be normal; to not hurt anyone ever again.

"Breathe, Eli," Imogen instructed. "You're doing so well." Imogen wasn't very good at being comforting, but it didn't hurt to try. Especially when someone she cared about was losing his mind five inches away from her.

"I think I should go," he told her unsteadily, running his fingers through his dripping hair while he continued to pace the room in front of her.

"Like, go home?"

"Yeah, home!" he laughed manically. "Wherever the fuck home is, I'll never know!"

Imogen moved her laptop to the side and stood up to approach him. It was so surprising how no one has linked the murders together; they all had a relation of attending the same school. The police just assumed they all ran away from home together to get away from shit.

She cupped Eli's face between her palms and kissed his forehead soothingly. Couldn't she see he wanted to be alone with his thoughts to figure everything out? "Calm down," she whispered, looking into his tear-filled green eyes. "I'm here for you. No matter what happens, I'll be here."

"No!" Eli shook his head and grabbed Imogen's wrists painfully tight. "How can you not see how fucked up I am?" he spoke through his teeth, and his hold on Imogen became stronger.

She tried not to struggle, though. She knew Eli couldn't control what was going on around him, and she was going to get him help. How can a boy go from being so good, to turning crazy, and having everything repeat itself? Imogen's never heard of anything that worked that way – unless it was a serious case of Bipolar. Either way, she was going to help him with all of what he was going through.

Imogen twisted her wrists in his tight grasp and hissed out in pain. It was starting to get a little intense for her now; she was scared to death. "You're hurting me," she spoke softly, her eyes meeting Eli's again. She watched as his angered face turned to a sorrowful gaze almost immediately. He quickly dropped Imogen's hands to her sides and bolted out the bedroom door. He couldn't hurt her again; Eli needed to get away, before he lost it again and took it out on Imogen. Poor Imogen's innocent soul, she's done nothing to deserve all of the pain Eli was putting her through.

Imogen thought about running after him, but she decided to stay back this once. He needed to calm down and blow off some of his unwanted steam. Imogen being there to attempt helping him through what this was would only make things worse. "God, keep him save," she whispered and looked down at the cross necklace hanging from her neck. Ever since she's gotten through some things by praying to Him, she's started to believe in Him more and more each day; He made her stronger. No more thoughts of suicide since she's cleansed herself and trusted in the Lord. "Let Eli fight this. Please, I hate seeing him hurt like this."

xxx

Jogging down the sidewalk of the busy street, Eli pulled out his phone and dialed the familiar number; letting it ring twice before someone finally picked up the phone. "It's almost midnight, who's calling?" the man on the other end of the phone answered, attitude filling up Bullfrog's rough voice.

"Bullfr—I mean, dad," Eli spoke in tears. "I'm at the corner of Yonge and Bloor. Can you please come pick me up?"

"We're an hour away, boy."

"Then I'll take a cab and meet you. Where are you and mom staying?"

Bullfrog sighed dramatically and gave Eli the name and address of the motel to give to the cab driver. As soon as he could flag one down; this was going to be a long and expensive night.

xxx

Eli was awoken by Bullfrog's heavy laugh, and he could feel like he was moving. He tiredly peeled open one of his eyelids to look over his surroundings. He was lying down in the back of the hearse, a cheap blanket feathered over him. The last he remembered, he'd changed out of his wet clothes and crashed on the pull-out in the messy motel room.

He sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes lazily. "Where are we?" he questioned. Bullfrog must've carried him out to the hearse so he didn't have to wake his ass up to walk out to the car. He figured he would give his son a break for once, which was very rare for Bullfrog.

The bright sun stung at his weak eyes, making them tear up a bit. "We're just outside of Vancouver," Bullfrog explained. "You've been asleep for a full day."

"I'm really glad you came with us, Baby boy," CeCe commented. "It gives us a chance to start over as a family." Was Eli crazier than usual this morning, or were his parents actually being nice for once? He must still be asleep; that was impossible for CeCe and Bullfrog to get along for so long.

Eli pulled out his phone from his back pocket to check his messages. '6 missed calls from IMMY' flashed at the top of his iPhone, along with '22 unread texts' just beneath the first notification.

With a heavy sigh, Eli cleared all of Imogen's texts without reading a single one of them. He wasn't trying to ignore her at all, but it was for her own safety. Eli never should have gotten close to her in the first place like he'd planned from the beginning. It would be his own fault if he hurt her, he couldn't risk that chance. He cared for Imogen way too much to let something happen to her. Eli assumed Imogen would figure that out sooner or later and forget about him.

He wasn't going back – he couldn't go back. Eli Goldsworthy, the weird Degrassi student didn't exist anymore.

Eli fell back to the floor of the hearse and listened to the sound of the rain hit the windows and the roof of the car as Bullfrog continued to drive along the highway. Eli would have to get used to all of the rain if he thought he could survive in a place like rainy Vancouver – it was going to be tough to start over completely.

xxx

A week since Eli and his family moved to Vancouver, and he still hasn't spoken to Imogen since the night he left. He missed her so much; he didn't think it was possible to miss someone so much until they were already gone.

Eli lay flat on his back, a bracelet Imogen had made for him out of black lace dangled just above his face. He thought about her when he stared at the bracelet, twisting it around and letting the light from his ceiling fan shimmer down on it.

The door to his new bedroom creaked open slowly, CeCe peeking through the crack of the door before stepping in completely. "Are you decent?"

"Obviously," he told her, weakly sitting himself up in his rock-hard new bed. He slipped the bracelet under his pillow quickly. "Can I help you with something?"

CeCe sat down at the edge of the bed, sighing as she did so. She was worried about her son, but the truth was she didn't know half of what was going on back in Toronto in order to worry. "That brunette back home is pretty cute."

"CeCe, please," Eli groaned painfully. He honestly would like to keep thoughts of Imogen to a minimum. It hurt him too much to think about her.

"She was your girlfriend?"

"Yeah," Eli said to his mother sadly. "I think I love her." He looked up into CeCe's blue eyes, tears stinging at his own green orbs. "What does it feel like? I mean, to really know for sure…"

CeCe smiled faintly down at her only son. "There are no words to describe how you feel. Your tummy does backflips every time you see that person. You feel like you would do anything to protect them."

A sharp pain ripped through Eli's heart, like he'd taken a knife to the chest. This was hell; why did he have to feel this way about a girl he couldn't be with? He was so fed up with the world right now. "Thank a lot. I feel much better now," he said sarcastically, turning over on his side to face the wall.

CeCe rubbed Eli's back softly and frowned at him, noticing how much he hurt. So she decided to change the subject. "Your first day of school is tomorrow." She clapped her hands together excitedly.

Eli rolled his eyes. "Great. More people to bully and harass me until I lose my shit."

She chewed down on her bottom lip and stood from the bed. "You should get to sleep so you're rested up. Lights out in five minutes." And then she escaped the room, leaving him alone to drown himself in his own depressing thoughts.

After a moment of sulking in silence, Eli's cellphone vibrated on the bed beside him. He picked it up and unlocked the lock screen, finally reading one of Imogen's texts.

_Just reply to this so I know you're alright. You can at least give me that._

He sighed sadly and composed a new message, replying with the letter "x", and then sending his text. The only reason he replied to her was so Imogen didn't do something stupid if she thought something had happened to him. Even though Imogen wouldn't do that anymore, Eli couldn't be more careful looking out for her.

xxx

Eli pulled his new black blazer on over his shoulders; Crazy Train by Ozzy was playing loudly on his new CD player. Apparently, unless you wanted a record player after all these years, you would have to pay a fortune to get your hands on one. Getting ready for school just wasn't the same as it used to be.

He looked himself over in the full-body length mirror that sat against the wall in his new room. He originally bought it off some greasy guy on the street for five dollars to cover up the peeling wallpaper. But it would for sure get its use out of it – it would make it a hell of a lot easier to get dressed every morning. At least there was one perk to getting away from Toronto; no more uglyass polos and khakis.

With a sigh, Eli grabbed his school bag and flipped the CD player off on his way to exit his bedroom. He could already tell today wasn't going to go very well. But this was his reality now, and he needed to accept his changes. Eli should feel blessed that he got out of the burning house quick enough, instead of thinking he was the only suffering teenager in the world.

He opened the apartment door and stepped out into the musty smelling hallway. He wasn't very fond of this city yet, but he was honestly a little eager to see what his new high school would be like. And he was surprised Josette hadn't tried texting him yet. Maybe he should call her to see how she was holding up. No, that was all in his past and he couldn't keep messing around with all of the shit from Toronto anymore.

Eli walked outside and sighed heavily when he saw it was rainy and gloomy again; it hadn't stopped raining since he got there and it was already starting to get old.

Nonetheless, he needed to get to school before he was late on his first day, even though he couldn't give a shit about what his teachers thought of him – they could all go to hell as far as he was concerned.

As he walked against the wind, he couldn't help but observe his surroundings. Of course there was rain, rain, and more rain. But other than the natural dismal, he had to admit it was a pretty happy city. Back in Toronto, people were always scurrying around; here it seemed more relaxed and he felt he could finally get somewhere without wearing some dude's hot coffee.

He finally approached Evergreen Community School, his heart pounding against his ribcage. He suddenly grew sick to the stomach, and a bit faint. What if this school was way worse than Degrassi was? Hopefully he left all that behind him and can get through the day.

Eli slowly pushed open the entrance door and watched all of the high school students getting their books out of their lockers peacefully. It was much more quiet here than at Degrassi, and everyone looked so nice. Let's hope they fit their part.

A short girl with blonde hair and framed glasses rushed over to him in flat converse sneakers. She looked like she was in a hurry to get over to him for some reason. "New guy!" she shouted in front of Eli, coming to a complete stop. "It's so good to see you!"

Eli laughed a bit, "Likewise, girl I've never met before."

She giggled and brushed her curly hair out of her face. She was pretty, almost close to perfect. When Eli really took a look at her, taking in every feature, he knew he would be happy here. Her light blue eyes sparkled, a gentle smile sitting at her lips; she looked like a normal girl for once. "I'm Maya," she outstretched her hand toward him to grasp in his own. "I'm a first year, but I'm sure I can help you find all of your classes."

"Thanks," he smiled down at her. "I'm Eli; I was forced to move here, but I think I'm liking this new school." He winked down at her, causing a warm blush to creep onto the girl's soft cheeks. His face dropped; Eli remembered how Imogen used to blush around him when they started out being friends. He missed her so much; he was even starting to miss her mom a little, and they only had a few conversations at the dinner table.

"Oh no," Maya gasped, shoving Eli in front of her to hide her face. "Don't let him see me."

"Don't let who see you?" he questioned almost confused.

"Zig," she whispered, burying her face into his back. "He's this guy I like."

Eli chuckled, calling out Zig's name. He didn't quite know who he was calling for, so he kept his eyes peeled to look for anyone who might be named the strange name Zig. He saw a taller guy with charcoal black hair headed toward the two of them, which he assumed was him. Zig looked like Eli when he was a bit younger. He couldn't remember much about how he looked years ago, but there was definitely a resemblance there.

Maya smacked Eli's back with the palm of her hand. "What are you doing? He's going to see me!" she hissed.

"No he won't. You're hiding." Eli was such a smartass; he didn't know why he was a prick to people all the time, it just came natural to him.

Zig laughed as he peeked around Eli's side. "Maya, what are you doing?"

Maya dropped her gaze down to her feet and tried to remember her words. What did he just ask her? What did that mean? Maya was so nervous being around him that it was like he was speaking a different language. She stuttered; "d-did y-you, did you, um…"

"Maya wants to know if you'll have lunch with her today," Eli cut in, smiling smugly at her. He already felt at home at this new school, with these people; something he's never felt while at Degrassi.

Zig nodded, shrugging his shoulder. "Sure. It's pizza day in the caf., so I guess I get two prizes in one day."

Maya smiled at him, her heart beating out of her chest. She'd been trying for months to get Zig to sit with her at lunch – it was amazing what Eli could do after being here less than five minutes.

xxx

Imogen placed her school bag down on the floor of the foyer and sighed tiredly. After Eli tried contacting her on twitter last night, she was starting to regret her decision to blow him off. But she couldn't help that she felt betrayed; he left her there alone, with hardly anyone to talk to without warning. She heard from one of Bullfrog's friends that they went to Vancouver; she just didn't want to believe it.

She walked into the living room slowly, becoming panicked when she saw an unfamiliar man sitting on the couch. Her mom was in the kitchen cleaning up, and the man's eyes were on Imogen's as he took another bite of the chocolate cake her mother had made this afternoon. What the hell was he doing here?

Imogen thought about running for it; sprinting out the door and going somewhere no one knew to look. What was she going to say? Oh god.

The man sat the plate down on the coffee table before he stood to his feet. "Imogen Moreno?" he asked her. She responded with a gentle nod. "Miss Moreno, I'm officer Burkhart from the Toronto Police Service. I'm permitted to ask you a few questions about Elijah Goldsworthy."

**You love my cliffhangers. :D the next chapter might be delayed a little, but at least this chapter was longer to hold you over. :) don't be mad at me that Eli left… **


	10. flying high again

**Okay, enough with the filler chapters and the whole depressy "wa-wa" crap. ;) why don't we get back to how this story is actually supposed to play out? In other words, Imogen, Eli's Sanctuary, is nowhere around to keep him safe from himself, which causes him to totally lose his shit. **

She slowly sat down on the couch as the police officer stood standing, pulling out his pocket-sized notebook and pencil. Imogen was fucked; thankfully she was such a good pathological liar that she could hopefully get through this. She already knew the full story of what had gone on with him and Josette the night he left. The two girls were getting along much more now since they ran into each other at Degrassi; Eli wasn't in the way of their friendship anymore. Josette told her she would never sell out a friend to the police, so he was safe from both her and Imogen spilling anything to the law.

"First of all, do you know the current whereabouts of Elijah?"

"Eli," Imogen corrected. "But to answer your question, I'm not entirely sure where he is; I think he moved out of Ontario with his parents," she told him truthfully. Maybe this wasn't going to be as hard as she thought it would be; as long as she told him the partial truth of everything, Eli should be perfectly fine and safe.

"You're his girlfriend, and you _think _he left but you have no idea where?"

She fidgeted on the couch, her hands running up and down her thighs nervously. "We had a fight before he ran off."

"What were you fighting about?"

"That's personal, and none of your goddamn business!" she snapped, automatically regretting it. If Officer Burkhart wasn't suspicious before, he certainly was now. Bad move, Imo, just cool yourself down and get this over with. _Swallow your pride._

The Officer sat down in the armchair across from the couch where Imogen was still sitting. "Ms. Moreno, I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this."

"Bottom of what, exactly? People move all the time, how is that a big deal?" she was a little more calmed down now, but she still had the right to worry about her boyfriend and his safety. She was sure he was alright where he was, and that he wasn't getting himself into any more trouble.

xxx

Bruce opened his eyes weakly, a bright light shining down on him; blinding him almost immediately. He'd found himself being constrained tightly at his wrists and ankles, the feeling of duct tape pulling uncomfortably at his mouth. The room was too bright for him to see his surroundings, but he's never been more afraid in his life. Bruce's biggest fear had always been being tied down to a table while some death-obsessed freak cut him open; his screams growing quieter and quieter as he felt himself being pulled away into a different world that was less kind.

The lights dimmed, and he caught out of the corner of his eye, a long metal table sat up at the side. It held common dangerous objects – a variety of butcher knives and saws terrified him the worst. He told himself over and over that it was just a dream; there was no way his biggest fear could be coming true when he hadn't even gotten around to fixing his life up yet. Everyone deserves a second chance, and that's what he needed more than anything right now. What was going on?

Eli approached him, carrying another rather large knife in his hands; rubber gloves tugged at his shaking hands, and a doctors mask covered his mouth and nose. This was going to be a very action packed night. Again, he didn't feel bad for what he was doing; he was taking away the bullies who made several lives terrible, so the world was a slightly better and less-cruel place. Though, he knew he would be regretting every moment of this once he'd realized what he's done – taking the life of an innocent was a serious crime that he wish he didn't have to break.

He forcefully tore the gray duct tape from Bruce's mouth, a screech escaping the larger, older boy's chest. "I'm sorry about what I said to you earlier," he told him between sobs. "This is freaky shit, man, just let me go."

Eli pulled the surgical mask down to let it hang from his neck, a gracious smile sitting there. "Now, why on earth would I do something like that?" he laughed. A hint of evil gleamed in his green eyes as he slashed the knife down over Bruce's stomach; a quiet scream came passed his lips now. Eli didn't fuck around – he didn't waste any valuable time trying to make amends with his bullies. They made Eli suffer, and now it was their turn to feel his pain.

xxx

_Eli strode down the hallways tiredly. It was ridiculous how much work this school pushed on the students; just in History, he had three assignments due before Monday morning – who the hell gave out that much weekend work in just one class? There went his weekend and nights of sleep; what a joy that would be._

_He felt a sudden slam on his back, his face soon being met with a glass door at the front entrance of the school. "What the fuck?" he groaned and pushed himself to stand up straight, back away from the door. Eli obviously couldn't escape the bullies, no matter how hard he tried running away from it all. It seemed like he would be dealing with these jerk-offs for the rest of his pathetic life no matter where he lived._

_He turned around to be met with a pair of blazing brown eyes that were staring right through him. The bully's hair was tucked under an old trucker hat stiffly, layers of hair product slipped through it to make it look filthy and greasy. How could someone use that much hair gel without their hair falling out? "What the hell is your problem, man?" _

_The bully, Bruce the Moose, said through his teeth, "That Maya girl you've been hanging around is my little sister. I want you to stay the hell away before I break your little twig-neck!"_

"_Dude, we're barely friends," he scoffed. "If you want to break someone's neck, go speak to that Zig guy." Bruce could have at least found a good excuse. "I'm going home to enjoy my weekend." Eli turned away, shaking his head and opened the glass door, letting the cold air beat against his face. It was best for him to ignore the bullies and continue on with his new life; he didn't want a repeat of Toronto events. But no matter how much he tried to avoid that, it would come right back._

"_Are you walking away from me?"_

"_Sure am," Eli smirked as he stepped out into the rain, Bruce following behind him. "See you tomorrow."_

"_Like I would spend my Saturday with your freakass."_

_Oh but you will, Bruce, you most definitely will._

xxx

Bruce cried out for help, trying to break free of the straps holding him down, but they were entirely too strong for him. And it didn't matter how loud he screamed, no one would be able to hear him for miles. Eli drugged his hot chocolate at one of the local café's Bruce would go to every Saturday morning. He then proceeded to drag him out of the place, drop him in Morty, and haul his fat ass over to an old abandoned hospital that was in the middle of farm-country. There wasn't one person around this area that wouldn't be able to hear his screams without thinking it was a sheep being slaughtered for its cotton. Or a farmer who was very hungry for bacon, murdering his pigs viciously.

Eli twisted the knife up into his stomach, watching as the blood seeped through Bruce's white tank top, dying it a violent red colour. And Bruce continued to scream, yelling out any nasty word that his brain could process quite quickly. "Fuck!" he gasped for air, a waterfall falling from the corner of his mouth, creating a cerise puddle of torture at the table beneath him. "You son of a bitch!" he groaned weakly. "You're crazy! Fucking crazy!" he could feel the blade being yanked out of him now, his body shaking uncontrollably in panic and fear. Bruce's body began to grow cold, and he felt himself slipping into a form of shock.

"Is that so?" Eli cocked his head to the side and backed away from Bruce's trembling body, dropping the knife into a bowl full of sterilized alcohol. It was amazing how many things you could find in an abandoned hospital that's been used decades ago; most of which were rusty and tarnished – all the more better.

He picked up a utensil he'd found in the old cafeteria, raising it to examine it more clearly in the light. He smirked to himself as he looked over the silver handle, and sharp ridges of the old and rusted melon baller. This would do just nicely.

Eli spun around hastily and adjusted the mask back over his mouth, watching as Bruce laid there, the life being sucked out of him by the second. He couldn't go under on him now; he wasn't close to being finished yet and he wanted that bastard to be awake as he drilled into his body painfully. Bruce _deserved _everything he was getting from Eli – everyone should know better than to bully someone, because you never know who the fuck you're dealing with.

He raised his arm, and flung it forward to slam his hand into the side of Bruce's face; a loud slap echoed through the isolated operating room. "Just kill me already," Bruce coughed. "I've learned my lesson, okay? "

"I'm not done with you yet!" Eli's voice muffled under the medical mask, and he grabbed Bruce's face to hold his head steady. He was going to be dripping in blood once he was done here. That's okay, though, Eli actually enjoyed the smell of fresh blood burning his nostrils; it was _intoxicating. _

Eli pried Bruce's left eye open, the melon baller slamming down into the socket with great force – blood spilled out and ran down his face, a nauseating crackle sound coming from the eye socket as he twisted the utensil around. At this time, Bruce was already in so much pain that he was knocked into full shock, barely even realizing what was going around him. Which made Eli even more pissed off now, popping his eyeball out and throwing it to the dirty hospital floor.

xxx

Officer Burkhart sipped at his hot coffee and stared intensely over at Imogen. So far he'd gotten close to nothing out of her, but he knew she was hiding something; he could see it in her devious eyes. "Does Eli's disappearance have to do with his house fire over a month ago?"

"Hmm…" Imogen tapped her chin, pretending to think of a conclusion to his question. "I would find a new place to live too if my house burned to the ground."

"Listen, I don't want you getting smart with me," Officer Burkhart growled. He was a feisty one. And come to think of it, this poser showed Imogen no proof of identity stating he was who he was claiming to be. "You don't want me to arrest you, do you?"

"There's no law against being a smartass."

"Would you…" he clenched his jaw and groaned, aggravated. "What do you know about Clare Edwards coming up missing? Along with several other Degrassi students that have had contact with Eli recently."

Oh shit. At least the police were finally doing their job at finding a suspect instead of linking all of the disappearances to run-aways. "Can I play with your handcuffs?" and with that, Imogen's phone went off in her pocket, the muffled vocals of LMFAO's _Sexy and I Know it _sounding off. Talk about incredibly bad timing.

"Would that be your boyfriend calling now?"

Imogen laughed quietly and pulled her phone out from her pocket. And sure enough, that was Eli's ringtone going off for several seconds in the palm of her hand. She hesitantly pressed her phone up to her ear and listened to Eli's voice, noticing Officer Burkhart motioning her to put it on speaker. "Ms., Do as I say or I'm taking you downtown," He whispered. This guy was being nothing but a dick to her.

She surrendered and pressed the speaker button on her touchscreen, setting her phone down on her leg. "Eli!" she finally responded. She couldn't be more relieved to hear his gentle voice. She'd been worrying about him for the longest time. "Eli, where are you?"

"Outside…" he spoke, his mind wandering a bit. "I mean, Vancouver."

"What?" she exclaimed, and the police officer scribbled down some notes. "What are you doing there?"

"Starting fresh," he sighed. "Trying to get my anger under control."

Imogen rolled her knuckles soothingly over her throbbing temples. That comment, right there, may have just blown everything for him. "When are you coming home?"

"I'm not, Imogen. I left all of that behind me." it was hard for him to talk to her right now, but it would be the last time he got to hear her voice, and he didn't want to remember her as how scared she was the night he left. He wanted to talk to the Imogen he fell in love with one last time; the Imogen who showed him what a friendship was meant to be like, and was the reason for him having the best few months of his life. He wanted to thank her so much for that.

"But I just got you," she said sadly, her voice cracking; shaky. It wasn't fair to her. Eli loses control once, so he just moved to fucking British Columbia? She just wanted his arms wrapped tight around her while they lay on the couch and watched movies for hours. "Will I ever see you again, though?"

Eli frowned. "Maybe. But I was calling to tell you goodbye. And I needed to hear your beautiful voice once more. That was always my favourite quality of yours; your voice, next to your warm chocolate eyes. I miss those eyes."

"O-okay," she sniffed, her eyes beginning to water. So this may be the last time she ever hears from him? That was the worst thing she's heard since her daddy died; she was beyond crushed.

"I love you, Imo," he managed to whisper.

"I love you, too." But before she could even start her sentence, the line went dead. An irritating high-pitched dial tone beeped before her screen went black. She covered her hands over her eyes and cried silently to herself, ignoring the policeman who was still sitting there watching her.

He cleared his throat and stood up from the chair to sit beside her on the couch. "That was harsh," he patted her back awkwardly, trying to calm Imogen down. But him comforting her only made her cry even harder, her black mascara staining her pale cheeks.

**Hi, hi. :) I didn't get the chance to proof the very last bit of this since there's a storm two minutes away, which will probably knock my power out. It's hard to tell sometimes how long we go without power out here during a windstorm, so I wanted to put this up before then. Only a few more chapters to go until an announcement. :D I'mma go eat Pizza Hut now. **


	11. black illusion

**Yo! Wuddup mah brothas and sistas? Have you noticed yet that I'm a very strange person? Yes? Well alrighty then. I really have nothing to say here, except to enjoy the chapter. **

Eli stepped out into the dark hallway, his heart pounding against his ribcage as he shuffled his bare feet against the ice cold marmoleum flooring. Something felt off about his surroundings; the atmosphere – though the place looked familiar, it couldn't cross his mind when he's been here before.

The hallways were bleach white, paintings of black trees and shadows occasionally showing, taped to the walls. The only light exposing these halls was coming from a trail of florescent lights flickering dimly a foot above his head. It looked as if he were in some kind of strange hospital. "Hello?" his voice echoed through the empty corridor; a loud female shriek was returned from a distance. When Eli heard this, he lost his footing; his heart now beating a mile a minute. His body was ice cold, and he couldn't help but to feel extremely dismayed. He found himself being thrown down onto his hands and knees, a groan paddling from his tight chest. He looked down, and a plastic hospital ID bracelet was strapped around his scraggy wrist. Because of the low lighting, he couldn't make out much of the print.

The name _GOLDSWORTHY, ELI _was stamped across the top, followed by the _MRN – 3516509 _in the next line_. _And_ SX: M ADM/REG DT: 10/10/11 ; VANCOUVER PSYCHI –_ which was printed across the bottom; the rest he still couldn't make out very well. He must have been admitted into the hospital tonight for some reason. He remembered going home and crashing on the bed, but anything before and after that was a huge blur.

Eli arose back to his feet, holding onto the wall for support as he looked down again. A white hospital gown flowed just below his kneecaps, and he could feel his lungs tighten in his chest. None of this was right; why couldn't he remember anything?

He looked up once again, his eyes being met with a pair of bloody sockets where the gorgeous blue eyes of a teenage patient used to sit, before she dug them out with her own fingernails. She was admitted into the hospital sometime during the summer of 1988, and was there for almost five years before she died. Her name was Janelle Anderson, and she was beautiful; her black hair was her best feature about her, but they had forced her to cut it short and raggedy when she was taken into the hospital.

She'd done something to piss off one of her nurses, and they took away her pens as punishment. That's when she decided to use her own blood as ink to write on the walls of her hospital room. For those several years she was in the hospital, she would take her black sharpie pens to scribble the words she heard in her head to calm herself. There was one Haiku poem that stood out to her, which she heard being whispered into her ears more than once every week.

_She is a pained girl,_

_Blood runs down her precious face,_

_Tears are made of blood. _

Eli stumbled back, the side of his head being met with the cement wall, and he felt his eyes becoming heavy; the sight of the girl slowly fading until he'd fallen into a deep sleep.

xxx

His eyes snapped open, gasping for air as he traced his fingers along the back of his head where he'd hit it on the wall. _It was just a dream._

Eli rolled over on his side, falling off the bed and landing down onto the floor with a quiet sob. And he could hear whispers; the whispers were the same over and over. A poem about a girl with tears of blood – it was depressing, and made his blood boil at the sound of the deep voice inside his head.

"Paranoid. I'm so fucking paranoid; the voices never stop. Make them stop!" Eli covered his hands over his ears, and rolled himself up into a ball in the corner of his apartment bedroom. He was losing his mind – he was confused; he completely blacked out everything that's happened in the last forty-eight hours. When he was awoken, drowning in someone else's blood, the only thing he knew what to do at that moment was panic. "Fuck!" he screamed, squeezing his eyes shut as his head pounded. There was something within him that didn't feel right; he felt like the whole world was out to get him, and he could heart a hundred voices speaking at once inside his head.

He'd been avoiding his whole theory about going crazy for a year now, but he was only getting worse as the time went on; the longer he went untreated.

CeCe rushed into the room, her hand flying up to her chest once she saw her only son having a manic episode inches away from her. She was down the hall reading when she heard Eli's frightened screams, and she had to come running. Bullfrog had been out trying to find a new job for the first time in years when he left the two of them in the apartment building alone.

"Eli," CeCe said worriedly, slowly making her way over to him to place a shaky hand over his clammy arm. "Baby, it's okay."

"No!" he cried. "What the fuck is wrong with me?" he dropped his hands down to his neck, diffing his fingernails into the skin until blood broke through the surface. He wanted the voices to stop; he needed these hallucinations to go away. The only time he felt somewhat safe was when his eyes were closed, but that still didn't suppress the nightmares he'd been having.

CeCe's heart began to race when she looked over the boy and saw the blood drenched into his clothing. "What have you been doing?" she placed her fingers over her mouth; shocked, a sob busted through her chest. She'd watched the news about kids in Eli's class going missing, and she was worried for the other students when she realized there was a pattern – it was happening inside of the school.

Clare Edwards' body was found just five minutes away from their old house only hours ago. According to police reports, her body was found dismembered in a dumpster behind a common grocery store. Her boyfriend, Jake, was found in the tub in his own home with both of his wrists sliced open just the night before. Investigators guessed he knew something had gone wrong with Clare, so he committed suicide. Another theory involved Jake being the one to tear Clare apart, killing himself straight after. The second theory was much more rational, even though it was nowhere close to the actual story. They'd almost thought for a minute that Jake was the killer they had been looking for.

_Eli needed to confess up to everything before it only got worse._

"Mommy," he whispered after he could finally calm himself down, throwing his arms around her neck to hug her tightly. He needed comfort, to know that everything would be alright, even though he knew deep down he would burn in hell for all that he's done.

CeCe hesitantly wrapped her arms around Eli and ran her fingers through his dark, silky hair. She was scared for him. She'd noticed changes in Eli over the past year, but she convinced herself, he was going through some standard teen problems. Little did she know, her little boy was literally driving himself utterly mad. If she hadn't been such a terrible mother all these years (while she was getting stoned and hammered all the time), maybe she could have stopped all of this before it even started. She blamed herself for something that wasn't her fault by any means. She needed to rethink things, finally notice that if anyone – other than Eli – was at fault, it was Bullfrog for beating him right over the edge. She had to open her eyes to see that the obvious was right there in front of her eyes.

Just then, an annoyed Bullfrog entered the room. He was exhausted from being out practically all day job hunting. Being responsible for once was way too tiring for him. "I didn't intend on coming home to a house full of sobbing babies. Quiet it down so I can get some sleep, will you?"

CeCe slowly turned her head to face Bullfrog, still comforting her crying son. He never used to let his emotions out his much in front of his parents, but Eli was glad he did for once. "There is something wrong with your son and all you can think about is being a lazy fuck? What is wrong with you, you bastard?"

Bullfrog scoffed and retreated back down the hallway. He wasn't in the mood for his wife's games, and that screw up of a son he had deserved to suffer.

But this didn't stop the hallucinations – Eli had seen a woman dressed in all white in the corner of his room. She looked sad; her eyes were bleeding from crying for almost an eternity. Her damp, black hair framed her face and fell down the front of her gown peacefully. She was screaming; her high-pitched yell almost like a banshee. The woman cloaked in a white hospital gown was suffering for so long and she wanted someone else to feel her pain. It was the same girl he was seeing in his nightmares.

"Mommy," Eli repeated, burying his face in her long blonde hair. "What's wrong with me?"

"I don't know, baby boy," she said shakily, squeezing Eli tighter to her chest. She would like to know the answer to that same question – hopefully she could get something out of him after he's calmed down. At this point, Eli didn't feel safe around anyone. He feared hurting the people that he loved; he could have even blacked out again to hurt his mother right here while he had the chance.

Eli just wanted to go back to Toronto to get himself help. He didn't feel comfortable in this city anymore. He didn't feel comfortable in his own body anymore; Eli just wanted to be normal again.

xxx

"Eli! We need to go, are you ready?" CeCe called from the living room. It's been a little over the week since his breakdown, and a lot has happened in the meantime. CeCe had finally found out about Bullfrog's violent streak toward their son, and a divorce was already in the process. She just couldn't understand how someone as sweet as Bullfrog, who was so happy when Eli was born, would take his anger out so violently. Well at least now Eli knew where he got his temper.

"Be right there!"

Over the week, Eli and his mom figured out a compromise; she was taking him to spend a few days back in Toronto for him to see a home therapist over the time before the divorce was final. Bullfrog was staying behind to attend the apartment and hold down a job until CeCe flew back for them to talk about living arrangements. There was no idea as to where Eli would be living, but it needed to be somewhere close to a good psychiatrist, no doubt.

Eli wheeled his suitcase out of his apartment, locking the door behind him before making his way down to the lobby; CeCe had already gone downstairs to catch a catch a cab.

As he walked down the staircase slowly, he took in every detail that he passed. He had to admit that he was starting to grow a soft spot for this dirty hole he lived in. The more he thought about it; the more that he had to walk these halls every day for over a month, he realized that the quality of the place didn't matter. He'd met a lot of good people here – even though he couldn't compare Vancouver to Toronto, it still felt like a second home to him. He'd definitely miss walking down these flights of stairs several times every day if CeCe decided to move him elsewhere.

He excited out the front door and opened up his umbrella almost immediately, raising it above his head to shield himself from the light rain that was falling down from the sky; Eli spotted CeCe who was dressed in a pair of sweatpants, a soaking magazine directly over her damp hair. She was talking to a cab driver from Yellow Cab, and she looked a little pissed off at the driver. He had a hard time understanding her English.

"Eli," a gentle voice spoke from behind him. He turned himself around and his face lit up excitedly. Maya stood behind him, her clothes dripping wet and sticking to her pale skin loosely. "I wanted to tell you goodbye before you left." Eli handed the shivering girl his umbrella almost immediately. Maya has been living in Vancouver for her whole life; you would have thought she would keep an umbrella handy all the time while walking the streets. "I'll miss you." She smiled sadly and shivered from the cold touch of the raindrops racing down her arms; goosebumps rose to the surface.

He nodded, "I'll miss you, too. You were the only one around here that could put up with my temper."

She looked down at her feet shyly. They both had a feeling they would never see each other again, and even though they've hardly been friends for a month, they've become really close. Eli was helping her out with her new relationship with Zig, and the sudden disappearance of her stepbrother. She owed him a huge thank you for all the help he's given her; she never had a friend so willing to listen to complain about herself and her life all the time. But Eli could relate to that – there were times he wanted to go on and on for hours about everything that was wrong with him, and he's always wished there was someone there for him that whole time. "I won't forget you, Eli Goldsworthy," she told him.

"Hey." He took a step forward, sharing the umbrella with her. "This isn't goodbye forever." He cupped her face gently and smirked down at her, staring into her blue eyes. It was easy for him to say she's become one of his only friends; his best friend. Slowly, he leaned his face down to brush his lips against hers softly. "We'll see each other again, I promise," he whispered, lingering his lips on hers for a moment before he broke away.

"We're going to miss our flight!" CeCe called over a roll of thunder. She was always one to interrupt at the most important times. Hell, she would be one of those to walk in while he and some girl were in the middle of having sex, just to ask what he wanted for dinner that night.

Eli backed away from Maya, grabbing his suitcase again before taking one last glance before walking away; she was left alone in the pouring rain, the umbrella now clutched in her hand at her side.

xxx

The doorbell rang, echoing throughout the empty downstairs of Imogen's living room. It was Tuesday afternoon; her mom had just left for the grocery store, and she decided to stay home from school today. She was too depressed to face anyone, let alone sit through over six hours of boring classes. Her mother didn't seem to care if she stayed home, so Imogen assumed it would be alright to fake sick for the first time in her life. The doorbell continued to ring anxiously as she scurried her way to the front door. Whoever was interrupting her nap better have a good reason for being so aggravating.

"Alright!" she whined, reaching for the doorknob. With an annoyed sigh, she twisted it and looked up from the floor quickly. Her eyes collided with a pair of emeralds orbs staring down at her.

"Eli," she breathed.

"Hey Imo."

**I'm placing a warning here in advance for next chapter. There will be sexual content sometime in the next chapter. I didn't want anyone getting upset with me about it, so I wanted to be able to say there were at least two warnings ahead of time. **


	12. the ultimate sin

**Hi. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! You're all my valentines on this special day; thank you for sticking through this fanfic even though it can get sucky at times. Thanks to the help of writer's block… **

**Um… there will be a sexual scene. But I wouldn't consider it to be that bad. **

"_Alright!" she whined, reaching for the doorknob. With an annoyed sigh, she twisted it and looked up from the floor quickly. Her eyes collided with a pair of emeralds orbs staring down at her._

"_Eli," she breathed._

"_Hey Imo."_

"What are you doing here?" she asked him, curious; a bit of anger and venom lacing her voice. "I thought you were staying in Vancouver…" she stepped aside to let him come through the doorway. Imogen couldn't be more depressed and confused than she was right now; mixed emotions were hell. Eli had a lot of nerve showing up at her house a week after breaking up with her over the phone. She didn't know if she would be able to take it if this was the last time they'd ever see each other.

Eli needed to visit Imogen before his first therapy session in a few hours; he felt so horrible for leaving her the way that he did for his own stupid and selfish reasons. Now Eli understood that leaving the only person that mattered to him wouldn't get him anywhere; leaving Imogen behind wouldn't make him feel better, or keep her all the more safe – he was obviously a whole lot worse now anyway.

He sat down on the couch, with Imogen following suit. The first thing that came to mind after seeing this room was the little dance party they had together. He'd had some of the best times of his life with Imogen; he didn't know what he would do if she couldn't forgive him. But then again, Eli deserved that – why should he get the chance to be happy when he's only hurt everyone around him multiple times? Breaking Imogen's heart was no one's fault but his own, and she was way too good for someone as masochistic as Eli. He didn't want to put her through any more pain than he's already caused; all he wanted was to know she didn't hate him. He couldn't live with knowing the girl he was in love with would be thoroughly pissed off at him for the rest of her life.

"I don't deserve you," he began, his hands shaking in his lap.

"Eli," she whined, sighing dramatically.

He gazed at her sadly, looking away almost immediately though when he saw the hurt in her eyes. He was always the one to cause so much, and he didn't want to be the bad guy anymore. "Just hear me out, please," Eli begged. "I've put you through so much pain, and I wanted to apologize. You have no reason to forgive me… but I need to know you don't hate me. I hurt you; I was a dick… I've hurt a lot of people." Tears started to prickle at his eyes. "But mostly you and I feel like _shit _for that I did. I must know there's someone I love that doesn't think of me as this terrible person I set the impression of. I'm really not that person." He peeked up at Imogen's saddened face again through his dark bangs. His heart fluttered nervously, and the butterflied in his stomach began tap dancing uncontrollably. "I'm messed up. I want to change."

Imogen hesitantly placed a hand on Eli's shoulder. He seemed really sincere, and there's no way she could be mad at him for making one mistake. Everyone was far from being perfect. But she still was going to do whatever it takes to get him through this; she wasn't leaving his side. "We'll do this together." She smiled faintly, resting her head on his arm. If anyone was head of the cheer-up squad, it was Imogen – she always knew what to say to the people that she loved. But honestly, she didn't know if she felt comfortable around him anymore. She was not a doctor or Psychiatrist, but to her it seemed like Eli was a sever sociopath, and getting worse as the days went by. Just sitting here with him right now made her feel queasy.

"If it's okay with you, I would like for us to start over." Eli leaned back, shifting Imogen off of him gently as he stared into her chocolate eyes. Her beauty made him melt inside; he'd missed the feeling in the pit of his stomach whenever he examined her. Everything about Imogen was gorgeous, and he would never let anyone tell her any different.

"Imogen Moreno," she chirped, outstretching her hand toward to him awkwardly, trying to hold a smile on her precious face. "Pleased to meet you, Elijah."

xxx

Imogen laughed, grasping Eli's hand in her own tightly, stoking the back of his hand softly with the tip of her thumb. Eli wanted her to make him forget all of the pain; she was a distraction to him, and that's all he wanted at the moment – she was forgiving, they were in love, and nothing could ruin what they had together. No matter what got in the way of them and their relationship, they somehow managed to forget about it all and move on. Neither of them believed in fate, but they couldn't deny there was something between them that no one could understand.

Eli reached up using his freehand to stoke her flushed cheek, staring at the glimmer in her eyes. "I love it when you smile," he commented, moving himself closer to her on the bed.

She looked down shyly, examining the worn down sharpie stains at the base of his nails. If she knew him well enough, she would know he only scribbled on his nails when he was stressed out. He told her he didn't know how long he was staying in Toronto for, and she wanted to make sure he enjoyed his last days with her; as long as he wasn't being shipped off to the states. She would never get to see him if he left the country – neither of them could even afford phone bills of stamps to send letters back and forth. Chatting online wouldn't be the same anymore. "I'm glad you came over." She pecked his lips lightly, sighing nervously.

Eli frowned. "You don't sound very enthused.

"No really," Imogen smiled widely, cocking her head to the side. "I'm so happy you're here."

"Then what's wrong?"

Imogen thought for a minute, gnawing on her bottom lip as she sat up to look over Eli's face expressionless face. He'd starting wearing his smudged eyeliner again; after getting close to Imogen, he felt different, and didn't find an honest reason why he would need it. But after everything with him leaving for Vancouver, he decided to start wearing it again. Imogen liked it, though; she thought it made his emerald eyes stand out more, which wasn't a bad thing.

Taking a deep breath, she slowly swung her leg around his hips to straddle herself on his waist; she ran a hand down his heaving chest. Imogen kissed him slowly, angling herself so she was almost lying on top of him. Her breathing was unsteady; her hands were not surprisingly shaking, while she gripped at the font of Eli's loose blazer. Her body was quivering all over, a hundred thoughts racing through her mind – everything was moving so fast and she didn't know what she was doing anymore.

Eli's tongue beckoned at the opening between her lips, but he broke away slowly, eyeing her curiously. "What are you doing?" He pinned his eyebrows together, placing his hands on either of her thighs. He loved Imogen more than anything, and he wanted to prove to her how much he truly cared, but he knew that Imogen was less experienced than he was; he didn't want to take something so precious away if he didn't think she wasn't ready.

"Please," she begged, tears forming in her eyes immediately. "I love you. Just, please…" she tried to kiss him again, but Eli held her back and looked at her sadly. He was disappointed in himself; he didn't want to risk hurting her again. It wasn't that he didn't want her, because he did; Eli might not have been able to hold himself together. He could lose hold on himself, and be selfish during the matter. When he imagined doing that with Imogen, he wanted to take care of her. He wanted to keep her safe and make sure she wasn't hurting; Eli wanted to be a good boyfriend, and he obviously wasn't absolutely positive that he was well before the two of them took that next big step. There was too much on the line for him right now and he couldn't handle any of it. She slipped her hands down to fumble with his belt, giving him a desperate and pleading look. What was she getting herself into? "I want to…"

Eli watched her hands awkwardly, thrusting his hips up for her to pull the belt out from his belt loops and tossing it to the floor. Imogen captured his lips with hers again, cutting his words off before he could get the chance to protest on further. She was tired of talking; all they ever did was talk. She wanted him to shut up and kiss her like she's never been kissed before. "Have fun with it," she muttered against his moist lips, getting a smirk in return. "I'm ready; I'll be fine." She smiled, her fingers finding their way up to tangle themselves in his thick black hair as she continued to coax their lips together in such sweet harmony.

In final forfeit, Eli clung his arms around Imogen's waist and quickly whipped himself around, throwing her down on the bed to crawl on top of the small brunette; he placed sweet, gentle kisses along her neck. Imogen shuddered beneath him, her eyes fluttering closed as she began shaking nervously again.

She'd always imagined her first time to be special; with someone she loved and could trust with her body. Imogen thought she could give Eli that chance, but now the longer that they rolled around on the bed attached to one another, she was beginning to doubt those feelings. She didn't know what she wanted anymore to be honest. Eli's hands wandered up the back of Imogen's shirt, his cold fingers reaching to unhook the clasp of her bra.

What they were going was meant for fun, right? And to show each other how much they cared about the other? So Imogen needed to stop being such a pussy and have some fun once in her lifetime; she _was _the one to suggest they do this. And it was starting to get harder to object, because his lips were so soft and tasted like cherries and his hands were so strong yet gentle.

Eli leaned up to kiss her lips, his eyes looking straight into hers. "I love you," he whispered. He kissed her again, and then moved his lips down to her jawline, to the crook of her neck, sinking his teeth into her sweet soft flesh.

Imogen closed her eyes, a pleasurable breath passing the soft of her lips. She slicked her fingers through Eli's hair again, enjoying all the attention she was receiving from him.

Eli's hands crawled down her sides now, goosebumps rising to the service of her tanned skin. She whimpered as he stripped her of her t-shirt, throwing it to the side, and slamming his lips to hers.

His hands were all over the place; tangled in the tassels of her hair, and soon after helping Imogen out of her skinny jeans. She returned the favour by tearing off his black blazer and V-neck, followed by his own black skinnies. By now, Eli had completely forgotten about his theory session in an hour, and at the moment he really couldn't care less. His thoughts were all over the place as it was, but at least he got to spend his time with Imogen while it lasted. He would spend every waking moment with her if he could.

xxx

The couple's shredded clothing showered the bedroom floor of Imogen Moreno, their moans and hot breaths, along with the scent of sweat and saliva surrounding the secluded room.

Eli thrust himself into her again, a stinging vibration sending up her spine; fresh tears fell from her eyes. "You alright?" he asked her softly, his body frozen, but aching for more.

"Fine," she muttered, her head thrown back into her pillow. "Keep going."

Eli followed her request, their hips thrusting into each other's simultaneously; Imogen's fingernails raked down Eli's bare back as both of their hearts fluttered within their chest. A gentle cry escaped her, the pinch and tear feeling finally starting to ease up a bit. It wasn't as bad as she had always believed it would be; it hurt a little less than expected, and Imogen didn't feel like she needed to be afraid of anything. But at least she was finally getting her first time over with, with someone that she really cared about, and he cared about her – she had her next time to actually look forward to. This afternoon would not make her list of regrets; Eli had taken care of her in just the way she thought he would.

**There are only two more chapters after this one! (Technically one chapter but it will be split into two parts.) That means this is the time for you guys, my readers, to guess how the story ends –in the reviews-. It would be interesting to see if anyone can find out how far my destructive mind can actually get me. Also, there will be dedications at the end of chapter 14. Come to me on twitter (MunroCArmy) and some of you will be selected. Mariah, you're already being included, so don't worry about anything. ;) And after the dedications (or before. Haven't decided yet.) there will be a very special announcement, like stated before, that you will most likely love. This has been a long a/n; continue on with your day and don't forget to review. :) we're down to the wire here, people. **


	13. bloodbath in paradise part 1

**What goes on? This chapter might be a little shorter, but that's because there was really only one spot between this chapter and next to end it at; putting random words here so this sentence doesn't end in a preposition, don't mind me. (yes that would be a cliffhanger) But the next – the last chapter will be longer than usual. **

"We only do cremations here," Jeremy told his new costumer, slightly annoyed with their several questions. Every day he had to go through the fact that there was never open casket. His business was meant for people who couldn't afford high class, fancy funerals for family members.

"Then what's the casket for?" the younger man argued, pointing toward Jeremy's casket sitting at the front of the room.

Jeremy rolled his eyes. "It's for show."

"Why do you promote things if you're not selling them?"

"I'm not promoting it… it's for show."

"That's a perfectly good casket; you could sell it for a lot of money. Why don't you sell it?"

"It's for show. If I wanted to sell the thing, I would have done it ages ago," Jeremy spoke in a monotone voice now. "Sir, if you're not interested in having a cremation ceremony for your wife, maybe you should leave."

"Well why can't you have an open casket funeral for her?"

Jeremy pinched the bridge of his nose, a headache starting to form in his temples. "We only do cremations here."

"Then what's the casket for?" the man asked him again. Did he have memory loss or something? Jeremy has never met someone so determined to get what he wanted.

"It's for show," he growled through his teeth.

xxx

Eli stepped into Crassly Cremations, looking around at the new renovation his old boss Jeremy had recently done to the place. He replaced the old scuffed tile flooring with gray carpeting, and put in new dull pink drywall to make his customers feel more at home; this place was far from any home Eli knew.

He came here to talk to Jeremy after not seeing him in so many months; that guy ruined his life, and he needed to get his revenge. Because of that fucking loon, he'd turn Eli into a murderer. Eli thought what he was doing all this time was for the better good, for self-defense; saving other people from being the victim of their harsh bullying. His hideous and immature actions caused nothing but hurt, and pain, and death. How could he be so stupid to not realize what he was going from the beginning? Because of what he'd done, all of the anxiety and feeling of guilt turned him utterly insane. The guy was a total basket case.

"Hey!" Eli called angrily when he noticed Jeremy was sitting in one of the back pews of the crematorium. His hands were folded in his lap and his eyes were closed, his head down. He must have been praying for whoever might have died recently. After Eli left, Jeremy hired a new worker for him – he drew business in pretty quickly since he was popular around New York City. Declan Coyne moved back down here just this year, looking for an actual job thanks to his mom's orders.

Jeremy stood rom the pew, his face lighting up when he saw it was Eli standing inches away from him.

_Smile Jeremy, it may be the last time you ever do. _

"Eli! I thought you went to Vancouver!" the smile still held on his wrinkled face as he approached the boy. "It's so good to see you. You know, Declan may be good at bringing business around, but you were always my favourite high shelf duster." He patted the side of Eli's cheek with a chuckle, receiving nothing but a glare from Eli. "So what can I do for 'ya?"

He smirked deviously at the older man. Eli just got finished with his first therapy session after being a half hour late; the guy prescribed him three different kinds of pills. One was to make him sleep, another was to help with hallucinations and delusions, and the final one was the control his anger and manic episodes. Eli's never been on any type of medication before, so it was going to start being a little different.

He was instructed to take his Tegretol right when he left there, but he needed to get something done first before he was turned into someone's fucking Science experiment. He wanted to have control of himself before a medication started to own and make decisions for him.

"Why would you do this?" Eli gulped, gripping the handle of a gun behind his back. Eli Goldsworthy didn't play around; that was the first rule he was taught in this fucking 'game'.

Jeremy grabbed his jacket and flicked off the lights; the only glow in the room being shone from the several red candles being spread around the room. He was heading home early today to pick up his new copy of _The Twilight Saga: Eclipse_. He was treating himself to a marathon this evening. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't fuck with me!" he shouted, his body quivering. The man he once looked up to meant nothing to Eli anymore. He thought Jeremy was being the dad he never got to have, but in reality he was fucking him up worse than anyone has ever had. He hated Jeremy for turning him into the monster he was. "I kill people because of you! I want you dead!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he told him smugly.

"It's your fault, you asshole! Clare, Owen, Jonny… all the rest. They didn't deserve to die." He looked down at his feet, angry tears starting down his red cheeks. "You asshole. You fucking asshole!" he laughed almost humourously. "I'm just a kid. Why the fuck would you teach me such bullshit? You piece of crap…"

Jeremy shook his head, is blue eyes meeting with the boy's green ones. "I taught you to stand up to your bullies. Scare them a little bit; I didn't encourage you to go out and murder them with meat hooks," he explained. "That was all you. Blame me all you want, but you're the one going out and killing people in this situation. The police are looking for you, Eli."

"You've killed people too."

Jeremy pinned his eyebrows together, honesty confusion wiping over his face. "In poker, maybe."

"But, you said…" Eli's heart began to race; he slicked a shaky hand through his charcoal hair, smoothing his bangs back. All this time he thought Jeremy was the one doing this to him – maybe Eli really was losing everything in him that was sane. He was now convinced that he'd never been sane once in his life; was Imogen even real, or was she part of his fucked up delusions? "I think I'm going crazy." His index finger toyed with the trigger on the gun as he pulled the object from behind him at eye level.

What was he doing? His mind was racing in a hundred different directions at once. One voice was telling him to shoot Jeremy, another demanded to kill himself; his conscious wanted him to dump the gun and get a coffee from the Dot. There were so many choices that he didn't know which the right one was. Breathing shakily, he pointed the barrel toward Jeremy's torso that was no more than an arm length away. The gun touched his chest, and the older man quickly raised his hand to knock it away from his upper body.

Eli's grip tightened; his arm was at his side now. "My head is telling me to kill you, then myself. I have to do it." as he started to raise the gun again, Jeremy jumped forward to attempt snatching it from his hand. However, the both of them were so strong that it was a struggle to get the loaded hand-gun from the other.

The pair continued to struggle, the gun between the two of them, Eli's finger still on the tip of the trigger. Jeremy needed to get Eli help; there was something extremely wrong and the first person he blamed was himself. He shouldn't have said anything to make Eli take it the wrong way.

He didn't want to hurt his favourite employee, but he had to in order to save his own life, along with several others Eli could go after.

Jeremy's fingers fought against Eli's, attempting to pry them away from the trigger long enough to get his own fingers there.

Suddenly, a bullet shot out of the short black barrel, exploding gun powder falling directly to the floor along with a lake of thick, warm trickling blood; the bang of gun fire echoed throughout the crematorium.

**Yay! Cliffhanger, yay! As you already know, the next chapter will be the last. It might be just a little delayed because of me not wanting to give up this fic. The idea has been with me since June, and it's always hard to a writer to finally conclude their story. O_O anyway, let me know who you think is dead (or undead. Wink. Wink.) Let me remind you that these last two chapters are "bloodbath in paradise part 1&2". If you don't know what a bloodbath is, let me tell you, it's not fun at all; my chapter titles always stick with the story as well. ;) See you next week! Excited for the premiere of Degrassi on Monday and Friday. :D**


	14. bloodbath in paradise part 2

**First thing's first, let's get the dedications out of the way. :)**

_**mfeistyx3 **__**– You've been there since the first chapter was in progress, and your freak-outs always give me wisdom. ;) Your hatred toward Josette was an entertainment for me, and sadly she isn't in this chapter. Thanks for being one of my Degrassi/AHS besties, and tell your dog Nina said to stop decorating your bedroom floor. **_

_**ohhaiitsgrace: **__**Your live-tweets while reading each chapter makes me laugh (especially when you read about Imogen kissing Clare). There will not be any more lesbian action sadly, but you may enjoy the direction Josette goes (later. Just not right now. And that's a hint.) Thanks so much for being there and leaving awesomesauce twitter reviews for me!**_

_**WheezyLovesMunro8498 (YeahItsAsya) **__**– You left the very first review for this story telling me you didn't like the "murdering concept" of the plot, yet you love the idea of the fic. You make no sense to me since the whole idea is Eli killing people. ;P anyway, you were so supportive of me through this, and I feel like I should give you a big chocolate muffin that's the size of your head. **_

_**Harrys_sweet **__**– Just about every other day, you asked me if I update yet. And that's the best love a writer can have; readers becoming attached to the characters and plotline of their work. Live-tweeting about every little detail is highly appreciated, and I'm so lucky to have a reader like you. **_

_**AshleyMocha12 **__**– Where to begin with YOU! Your reviews are always all over the place to the point I have to read them over a few times to understand what you're saying. ;) Your fanfiction is off the chain yo, and I'm glad you decided to write in third person. By the way, people should go read her fic: Final Destination (the Degrassi version). I've read quite a bit of it, and I have to say that it's everything I love in a story. **_

_**TayMarsh23 **__**–You were my 5**__**th**__** reader, and I love you. ;) The variety of Imogeli and EClare stories on your profile is amazing - it's nice to know a fan of Imogeli can also like EClare. **_

_**savan7 **__**– You were my 10**__**th**__** reviewer with some of the best reviews I've ever gotten on a fanfiction. I want to hug you right now for saying this is your favourite story! I only intended on writing this to get my anger out and such, but it's really amazeballs to have people love it as much as they did. Thank you! **_

_**And a huge shoutout to every single one of my readers who have supported me through this (even though you don't review, I know you're there).I wouldn't be writing out these dedications if I didn't think you were the best readers alive. Thank you so much. **_

_**Also a big thank you for the writers and producers of the movie "Death and Cremation" who gave me the original idea for this story; if it weren't for other people's fucked up minds, Sanctuary would never have happened. Truly an amazing film, with two of my favourite actors of all time. [ Wuddup Brad Dourif and Jeremy Sumpter? ;) ]**_

**And now, I give you the very last chapter of Sanctuary. **

Eli tore himself down the road, a brisk air beating against his hot face; Jeremy's blood covered the front of him. It was dark by now, the only light coming from the few street lights off at the side of the road. _I killed him, _Eli thought to himself as he continued to press himself down the abandoned street, _why did I do that? What's wrong with me?_ Who knows what time it was by now, or how long he's been running – this was the first time he's truly felt afraid of himself. He almost killed himself because of bone trembling whispers in his head; why would he listen to them? He didn't want that; he didn't want to kill himself because of his imagination acting up again.

He found himself standing outside of Degrassi, doubling over as he coughed dryly, and trying to catch his breath. What would happen if someone saw him fleeing from the crime scene, covered in Jeremy's blood? Eli would be done for; no chance of mercy, he would blow it all right then and there. They would throw him in jail and let him rot in a grimy cell for the rest of his life. Eli approached the back gym entrance lazily, tugging on the door; to his surprise, it was unlocked. Whoever was in here last might have forgotten to lock-up – smart, yet stupid on their part.

He snuck in, closing the door behind him quietly, shutting it with a gentle click. Just in case someone else was already here this morning, he needed to make sure no one – especially a staff member – see him dripping in blood that didn't belong to him.

xxx

Imogen looked down at her sketch book as she slowly made herself down the empty hallway; her fingers traced over a new drawing she'd done of the far hallway where a tragedy struck this school a few years ago. Her art assignment from that Monday was to draw a wall, or corner of the interior of a building. After hearing about Jimmy Brooks, a basketball legend, was shot in that very hallway near her locker, she just had to sketch it out for her assignment. Ms. Dawes had given her to permission to get a key from the school principal to come in later on when it was quiet and no one was there to distract her. Ms. Dawes has always been her favourite teacher at Degrassi since she started attending there in grade nine.

She bit the inside of her cheek and furrowed her eyebrows together as she examined her picture more clearly; there were some rough spots, and pencil marks that she would have to go back and fix later on – it's a good thing she was a night owl!

"Hey gorgeous!" someone called from behind her. Out of instinct, she thought it was Eli speaking to her, but when she took a second to think about it, why would Eli be at Degrassi at four in the morning? She slowly turned herself around, closing her sketch pad as she glanced up to see Jay Hogart gleaming down at her. Behind him stood these two guys named Anson and Nick; what better to do late at night than to sneak into a school you didn't even go to. What were these guys up to anyway?

"What do you want?" she asked them, almost annoyed. If these losers were going to try something on her, they better back their asses off because she wasn't in the mood for anyone's bullshit. Jay took a step forward, slipping his cold hand up her cheek to slick his fingers through a loose strand of her soft hair; she leaned away from him. "If you don't mind, I would like a few hours of sleep before school in the morning."

"We've got time," Nick smirked as Jay pulled a bobby pin from one of Imogen's pony tails.

Anson approached Jay and a frightened Imogen, pulling the sketch pad from Imogen's loose fingers before grabbing her shoulders to pin her against the wall. Her sketch pad fell to the floor with a loud smack. Imogen struggled, trying to get her hands free from them; they were too strong for her. Jay and Anson exchanged a glance, moving over as they continued to hold down Imogen's arms to the cool wall. Nick eventually made his way over to her, stroking her flushed cheek with the knuckle of his index finger; he leaned his head down to run his smooth and soft lips over her trembling collarbone, biting down on the pink tender flesh just above her breast, which was peeking over her pink tank top. She whimpered; they've been drinking, she could smell the strong scent of vodka coming off of Nick as he let his hands wander over the curves of her body. "You fucking dick," she breathed, her voice shaking as Nick's hand traveled up to fondle her chest.

xxx

Eli lathered the fresh smelling blue body wash over his body, the steaming hot water running over him and dripping down into his eyes. He didn't blink the water out of the way, he simply stood there, washing his body, and letting his mind wander. He needed to get away from here – his mom was planning on moving him to Montreal for new beginning once the divorce was final. But Eli couldn't stand to stay into Toronto any longer before someone caught on that it was him. He was even willing to get put into a crazy house if he had to; he wasn't killing anymore people if he couldn't help it – preventions were what he needed most at the moment.

The steam grew in the shower; he looked down at the floor where the deluded red colour was stirring around the drain in the middle of the showers. Eli was so fucked up, and he didn't know how he felt about himself anymore. He should have let Jeremy kill him when he had the chance; it would have gotten him out of the way of his massive destruction.

xxx

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Eli exclaimed from the hall. At this time, Jay, Nick, Anson and Imogen had made their way into the gym; Nick's hands were beginning to unbutton Imogen's skinny jeans. Because of the gymnasium being so dark, Eli couldn't see it was Imogen they were holding down – she was too afraid to scream out his name for help.

The trio all whipped their head around to face Eli in unison; Nick had a smug grin placed on his face which made Eli's stomach churn. How the hell can someone get off on using a girl unwillingly for her body? It was sick – Eli couldn't image ever doing that to any girl, under any circumstances.

"We're busy here," Anson told him, annoyed. Whatever their plan was with Imogen tonight, it obviously wasn't going to happen with Eli there. Was it legal to take three lives to spare another? Probably not, but when did Eli ever follow the law before?

Eli stepped toward them, Imogen's face still shaded from him. He cocked his handgun from behind his back, and grabbed Nick by the front of his shirt to slam him into the wall. Anson and Jay continued to hold back Imogen; was she even worth it to the three of them anymore? With quick movements, Eli pulled his gun out from his back jean pocket. He aimed the gun toward Jay who looked like he was the strongest, pulling the trigger back to shoot a bullet into the side of his neck; blood shot out of Jay's wound, falling to the floor in pain – blood spewed out of him with every heartbeat. Eli was aiming for between the eyes, but he wasn't used to the kick in this new gun; at least he didn't miss target. Again, cocking the latch back, he blew a bullet into Anson's chest, shooting off two rounds. _Which only left two bullets within his clip_. Oh, this was going to be quite the entertainment.

Before Eli could get a good look at Imogen, her dark hair fell over her face; she backed away from him while he turned to face Nick again. He was pleading for Eli to let him go, but he wasn't going to let a rapist get away with nothing – luckily he got to them before any of the guys could go anything to Imogen; they only smacked her around a little.

Nick seeing his friends being blown away, he knew he had no chance against Eli, and he wasn't going to pull any weird shit with him.

"I know what you're thinking, 'did he fire six or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all that excitement, I kind of lost track of myself. But this being a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world…" Eli began, a masochistic smirk tugging at the corners of his lips; he held the barrel under Nick's chin. Eli pushed Nick's face up for him to look him in the eyes – he liked to face his targets before blowing them to kingdom come. "And it would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question; do I feel lucky?" he chuckled, slaying himself with his own humour; Nick quivered beneath him. "Well, do 'ya punk?" in that next second, he clicked the trigger; a loud explosion busted through the gymnasium. Imogen covered her ears to muffle out the sound, watching in panic as Nick's blood splattered over Eli's face messily; he let him fall to the floor with a thud. "Guess he wasn't feeling lucky." Eli licked his lips to let Nick's bright blood roll into his mouth.

He looked up from the lifeless body of Jay Hogart now, droplets of blood rolling down his chin; his green eyes glowed wickedly under the dimmed light. Imogen glowered over at Eli, her body shivering uncontrollably as she tried to find her footing. She shook, her eyes not leaving Eli for one second; she stared at the crimson fluid racing down the front of him to form a puddle around his feet. "Imogen," he whispered, his eyes widening when he realized it was her standing there. "This isn't what it looks like." He took a few steps forward, backing Imogen up into the wall behind her. She yelped; tears stung at her eyes as she frightfully watched him approach her. She was too scared to say anything, and too frozen to move. Eli promised her that he was getting help – he was seeing a psychologist, so he should have been somewhat better by now. How could she ever convince herself that anything at all was good about Eli? He lied to her; he was nothing but a cruel monster. He didn't love her – he didn't love anyone; he didn't know how to love. Eli told Imogen nothing but lies.

"Imogen, please, let me explain," he begged. Eli reached up to touch her face with the tips of his bloody fingers, leaving stains there.

Imogen struggled to get her words out as she looked everywhere except for in Eli's eyes; she couldn't bear to face him. Three familiar bloody bodies showered the floor of the Degrassi gymnasium; a frightened shiver shot up Imogen's spine. All of these guys that lie dead before her were some of the strongest ones she knew – if Eli could do so much damage to them, what could he do to frail little Imogen? She'd be absolutely no match if she were to stand up to him; she loved him more than any boy she's ever known, but she needed the end this before it got bad for the both of them. Imogen couldn't handle him right now after everything she's already been through; she was one anxiety attack away from having a stroke at the age of sixteen.

Eli stroked the side of her face slowly, smiling gently at her. "I love you," he whispered. "They were trying to rape you, what else was I supposed to do?"

"You scare me!" Imogen managed to barely speak through her teeth. "Eli, I can't deal with this." she shook her head and swept his hand off of her face. The heartbeat within her eardrums became more intense as she continued to stare at him. Just two sentences from her had made his mood drop once again. "I'm afraid you might hurt me, and I can't live in that fear anymore. I can't even look at you without worrying you'll break down." He listened to her while she spoke, his jaw clenching and nostrils flaring. She couldn't be breaking up with him now – they were only a few weeks away from December. Who was he going to celebrate his seventeenth birthday with? Who was he supposed to spend Christmas and New Year's Eve with? He loved her – he knew that she loved him too, so why was she doing this to him? "I'm so sorry," she told him shakily. "I hope you understand why I have to do this."

"I guess so." Eli was hurting on the inside; his heart sank to his stomach and he wanted to do nothing but break down right in front of her. Eli took Imogen's virginity no longer than twelve hours ago, and she breaks up with him like it's nothing? He basically saved her life, and she repays him by yelling at him. Why did Eli give girls a chance? Every relationship for anyone ended the same; in heartbreak. After this one, he was considering to be a Monk – shave his head, wear white robes and develop fifteen fresh blisters in the palm of his right hand.

Eli looked at Imogen sadly now. "Can I have a goodbye kiss?" he frowned.

She hesitated, her tear-filled eyes flickering down to the wet and silky scarlet blood still around Eli's lips. She nodded slowly, though; she could at least give him a kiss after breaking his heart. After all, they may not see each other again after Eli and his parents left Toronto; that way she knew she was safe from him and whatever new drama he could bring along with him.

Tears were now running down the both of their cheeks silently. Eli's large hand caressed below Imogen's jawbone, bringing her face up so their eyes were level with each other's

She gasped in the warm air that surrounded them, the strong scent of already rotting bodies flying through her nostrils; she fought back a rough cough, licking her lips instead. "I love you," he told her again. "I love you more than the sun, and the moon, and all of the stars in the sky. I love you more than my own life; I would die for you, I hope you know that." He wasn't making this easy for her. She wanted to forget about him after tonight, but after the way he was talking to her, she didn't think that would be possible. Eli was her first love – maybe, just maybe they could try again after he was better. "You're all I care about," he whispered before leaning down to capture Imogen's lips with his, receiving a light gasp from the girl. The sour metallic taste of the blood trickled from Eli's lips to Imogen's, rolling over her tongue as she tugged on his bottom lip with her teeth. Eli's hands grasped Imogen's, their lips still aching for more; the urge of pleasurable electricity shot through their lips. Neither of them could deny the spark that still stood between them; something that strong could never die. To be in love at such a young age was a gift that the two of them should have treasured together until they couldn't take it anymore. They were both at fault for blowing their chance, but it was too late to go back to that now.

Eli parted from her slowly, a gentle smack as their lips left contact with each other for the very last time. "You showed me a new life, Imo." Eli's voice was soft and sad; he backed away from the girl and left her there along in a puddle of mixed blood beneath her black converse sneakers.

She pinned her eyebrows together and lifted her hand to open up her blood stained palm. Tucked in the middle of her hand was the black leather bracelet she'd made Eli ages ago. He was really gone, and it was all her fault; she did the right thing though, and that's all that should matter to her. But that was at the back of her head as of right now; she wanted Eli to hold her, rock her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be alright. The truth was, nothing ever went well for Imogen – she wasn't meant to be happy.

A loud sob raked through her chest; the sting of her tears blurred the vision of the scattered bodies Eli had left behind. Imogen could feel her legs begin to give out beneath her, but she needed to move herself forward – life was constantly full of changes. It just so happens that the biggest challenge of all was convincing yourself you didn't love someone when they were your everything.

…**the end. That last scene was one of my favourites to write, even though it didn't turn out exactly how I'd planned. **

**Okay, so! Now onto that huge announcement mentioned in one of the earlier chapters. If you caught the hint about Josette in the dedications, there will be two more projects following this story. **

"_**Mercy" **_**will be a prequel (which is really short) about Eli and Josette's relationship during their writer's summer. Josette wasn't such a bitch back then, and I think you'll actually start to like her. Rated M, of course. **

"_**Desolation" **_**is a sequel (three shot) to **_**Sanctuary. **_**Where Eli and Imogen are and what they've been doing since the breakup. This one will be rated M as well. **

**And now, the very last author's note of **_**Sanctuary **_**comes to an end. Thanks for sticking through with me, and be sure to review your thoughts on this chapter, as well as what you think about my next two **_**Sanctuary**_** projects. **


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